


Brimstone Garden

by Freyjabee



Series: Bred-in-the-Bone [3]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: AU, Adventure, Demons, F/M, Hell, Horror, Magic, Monsters, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2019-07-08 02:18:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 81,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15920888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freyjabee/pseuds/Freyjabee
Summary: Zeref has been defeated at the highest cost. Natsu is gone, Lucy is pregnant, and Loke is trying to keep her safe—an impossible task when she plans on marching into Hell to drag Natsu back with a key and a contract as a new kind of spirit.





	1. Chapter 1

This was her third time in this tent, and yet, it wasn't any easier than the first. She was still scared and still mostly blind in the smoky dimness. Her eyes watered endlessly. She squinted and clutched the prize in her hand, the little strip of gold that dug into her too-hot palm.

A scrap of shadow shifted in the back corner, drawing Lucy's attention.

"Hello?" Her voice was much, much too quiet to be heard in the cavernous tent. A millisecond later, her question was thrown back at her, mimicked by a hundred creatures she couldn't see, all speaking in tandem. _"Hello? Hello?"_ The sound came from everywhere before it consolidated, slipping from one black as pitch shadow that snuck across the dirt floor and licked at Lucy's boot, tasting snow and salt and city waste. Fear, too, as it slid up her leg, caressing her knee.

Lucy's skin lifted in goosebumps; the urge to fight the shadow off was overwhelming. _Don't. Don't._ The last time she did, she insulted its mistress so badly, the priestess refused to see her for a month. Lucy didn't _have_ another month to waste.

That icy shadow was at Lucy's thigh. She was in tights but she could feel its cold press into her body. _Gods._ "Priestess?"

There was a cleaned and dried carcass of a wolf, strung up against the canvass behind Lucy. She swore it laughed, the bones knocking together roughly. Lucy turned to look at them, tense, and watched the woman in question _pour_ out of the skeletal remains. It was unnatural, a dead beast giving birth to something very much alive. Lucy clutched her coat to her throat, feeling her mother's necklace beneath the down-filled fabric. She'd finally dared to put it on. She already had nightmares, so why not? Lance Henbridge, a man manipulated into killing girls that looked like her in order to draw END of out hiding was long, long gone.

_Long gone._

There were other demons in her life now, ones she willingly visited. Like the woman before her, tall, willowy, skin as dark as coffee beans, eyes of a wolf, spiders sewn through her ratty dreadlocks, bone dust making her lips white. She was evil through and through, though she held the moniker 'Priestess'. Lucy didn't like dealing with her, every time she did, it felt like she was taking her life into her hands.

Whenever her resolve wavered, she closed her eyes and reached for that place in her dreams, where Natsu lived and breathed and touched her face, kissed her lips, told her he loved her before he made her bare and made love to her.

"Miss Heartfilia. I thought you wouldn't return," the priestess spoke, scaring off the shadow that had been circling Lucy's leg. Lucy blinked, back once more in the wide canvas tent in a city on the border of Alverez. "Imagine my surprise." Her accent belonged to bayous. She moved like a fey, half wolf, half woman, circling Lucy like she was prey.

Lucy spun to keep the woman in her sights; too easily she imagined she'd be launched at, her throat torn apart. "I've thought about your offer."

"Oh?" The woman cocked her head to the side, a sly smile on her mouth. "And what exactly did you think about it?" _Tink,_ not _think_.

Lucy swallowed and stretched out her hand, palm up. The golden key she clutched glinted by the light of that gently cracking fire. She kept her eyes away from its red and white cap.

"You will give me the lion?"

"If you give me the name of the enchantress that has the key that will open a demon gate."

The priestess' lips curled back, revealing large yellow teeth and black gums. "Yes?"

"Yes. And where to find her." She tried to think if there was some other concession she should add to the mix but couldn't, her mind was whirling too much. She thought she left fear behind when she watched Natsu burn up on that hill at Kardia Cathedral. She was wrong. So wrong. There was a lot she was still afraid of: not getting him back. Not knowing him if she _did_. Not knowing _herself_. What wouldn't she do, what wouldn't she _risk_ , to have him at her side again? As of yet, Lucy hadn't found a limit. She was only two months into her search, she was sure that there were plenty more dark and dangerous things she'd have to do.

The priestess reached and reached her long fingered hand. Her nails were black and filthy, bruised and dead looking. Lucy remained perfectly still, allowing her to curl her hand around Loke's key and remove it. Immediately, Lucy wanted to take it back and start all over again.

_Keep going, keep going._ She found mettle from _somewhere_.

"You impress me, Miss Heartfilia." The priestess took the key and slid it between her full breasts. Immediately it was lost in her dark skin. Lucy pressed her lips together to keep from uttering something stupid. "You already know your enchantress, though."

"No, I don't," Lucy denied.

"Oh, yes. And she knows you well, too."

Lucy clutched her hand into a tight fist. "You promised me a name. And a location, not riddles. _Tell me_." It wasn't wise to anger the priestess; Lucy couldn't find a shred of caution.

The woman smiled. "Such fire."

"A deal is a _deal_ ," Lucy said.

"Until you deal with a devil. You're not cunning enough for this path," the priestess said.

Lucy clenched her jaw and reached into her pocket, bringing forth what she had stolen. The necklace was short, tethered in its middle was a tooth no bigger than a child's. What the hell was it? Lucy didn't know, but she had an idea. Each shadow that slipped through the tent was more than just an absence of light, it was something living—or it had been. The last time Lucy dared to enter, she'd seen the priestess speaking to the macabre jewellery as if it were alive, and out of the corner of her eye, she'd seen the shadow of a child. To look at it was to lose sight of it; but Lucy knew it was precious. It didn't join the priestess in her nighttime misadventures; it stayed safe in her tent where no one dared to go. No one except a celestial mage with not much to lose.

As soon as she saw it, the priestess's face grew taut. "Release that now and you'll leave with your life."

Lucy stood tall. "No. Give me the name or I'll destroy it."

"You wouldn't dare."

Lucy let her expression go cold. "Why? If you don't help me, I have nothing. My most loyal spirit is gone, and the man I love will be lost forever."

"You'll have your child."

"It's sick," Lucy said. "I can feel it."

"Yes, it is," the priestess agreed.

Lucy pulled the necklace's tether tight, pushing it to the very brink of breaking. Wet cheeked, she demanded, " _So give me the name._ "

The priestess held up her hands. "Calm. Be calm."

"The _name!"_

Lucy didn't think she'd crack so easy, but this spirit was apparently very, very important to the priestess. "The one you seek is Eileen Belserion. She sits on the dark mage's throne in Alverez."

Lucy felt her stomach drop. "Eileen?"

The priestess's hand came out. "The necklace now."

_Eileen Belserion. Gods._ She knew it wouldn't be easy, but that seemed impossible _. Figure it out after._ Lucy turned her body and backed toward the exit. "It has been a pleasure, priestess, truly."

"The necklace, Miss Heartfilia."

"Yes." Lucy's heart squeezed; she felt like she couldn't get enough air to _breathe_. _Just a few more steps._

The woman snorted air from her nose; her scent was beginning to change, she was calling on the wolf.

_Gods._

"The necklace. Or I will tear you apart."

"I'm afraid you'll try anyway," Lucy said.

"You play a dangerous game."

"I'm not playing," Lucy responded. Her back hit the canvas. "You've been helpful, but I hope we never see each other again," she said just as the woman had enough, skin peeling back and replaced by thick, grey fur; her hands turned to paws, her mouth gained a row of sharp canine teeth. Lucy held in her scream as the beast launched and threw the necklace. Where it landed, she didn't know, because she toppled ungracefully out of the tent in that second, getting snow down the back of her neck and up her coat.

The very first rays of light hit both her skin and the venturing priestess-turned-wolf. The animal still came for a second. Lucy pushed herself back through the snow, hands going numb, and thought, _this is it. This is how I die_. Then the animal screamed inhumanly in the light and scampered back into her shelter.

Lucy didn't move or breathe for a whole five seconds. Then she shot to her feet thinking, _holy hell. It worked._ The myths were true and Loke had been worried about nothing, just as Lucy said.

_It was close, though_.

Lucy Heartfilia was turning into quite the gambler.

A grunt from inside the tent and a wavering of the canvass got her to moving. She began to run from the threadbare and stained home of her one-time business partner, not willing to see if her luck would hold. The air beside her glowed and Loke stepped out of the spirit realm. He easily matched her pace.

"You got what you needed?"

"Yes," Lucy huffed. "And we have to get moving. It won't be long before she realizes that key was a fake."

"And then what?"

"Hopefully by then, Eileen will have offered her help."

"Eileen?"

"Belserion."

Loke's stream of curses aptly voiced what Lucy was feeling. "She won't want to help us."

"We have to try."

"And if she does help? It won't be free."

Lucy said the same thing she always did. "It doesn't matter."

It would. One day, it certainly would. "The priestess might have been lying. Eileen could not know about demon keys," Loke said. He'd voiced his concern before.

_Maybe._ But… "I don't think so, Loke."

"How can you be certain?"

She'd gotten good at faking confidence. "She's the Red Despair. She's been alive for hundreds of years. She's done things no mortal would ever dream of. If anyone knows how to get through the gates of Hell and open a demon gate, it'll be her."

Loke knew better than to argue.


	2. Chapter 2

His mouth left trails of secrets on her skin, cinders that built then burned sweetness to ash. From her wrist to her elbow, from her elbow to her shoulder, from her shoulder to her throat, and then to her lips. In the waking hours, time had taken the particulars of his touch from her memory. Asleep, though, she knew him like an astronomer knew the stars, not flawlessly, because the stars were always changing, but _intimately_.

His tongue met hers and Lucy wished for oblivion. It was also while she was asleep that she forgot the particulars of reality. She wasn't lying in a motel room on a single cot, hands clutched over the small bump her belly had become. She wasn't leaning into Loke for some semblance of comfort. She wasn't on her way to meet the Scarlet Despair, for better or for worse.

She was free.

Hands sheathed in sharp scales didn't stop her from taking him by the wrist and forcing him to grab her, even when her skin nicked and split here and there, runners of blood coming like tears.

He kissed her throat. She looked down to watch her breasts fill his hands. Everything was perfect. The cold ground beneath her back, his hot breath on her neck, his body pressing into hers. She lifted her hands over her head and clasped them around a small rock on the ground, something to keep herself steady as he sat up and worked between her legs, wrapping them around his arms and then lifting them to his shoulders and pulling her toward him. This was the furthest he'd been from her when they did this. Lucy wasn't sure how she felt about it all. She liked having his body weight resting on hers. She liked his mouth leaving kisses that burned her alive.

He bit her ankle while he slid inside. Lucy kept her eyes open and reached for him. He wasn't close enough to kiss but he held her hand and her eyes while his body met hers. She whispered secrets while he made love to her. He whispered them back and spilled inside of her only after he was sure she had come. Dream Natsu was attentive. Lucy thought Alive Natsu had been, too. She wished she'd had more time to memorize and _learn_ the way they did this.

He released her hands and took her legs from his shoulders.

Lucy didn't let him stay away for long, finding his fingers and pulling him close again. "I want to stay here."

"You can't, Lucy."

Every night was the same thing. She said she wanted to stay, he gave her reasons she couldn't. "Living isn't so great."

"You say that because you've never been dead."

_Dead._ It was so final. He was always saying stuff like that to remind her. "When did you become so dire?" The Natsu she knew always had a smile.

He lifted her hand and kissed her wrist and her palm without answering. "It's time to wake up."

"It's not." She knew it wasn't. She could feel that there were still hours left until dawn. "You're trying to push me away."

He leaned over her body and touched her cheek. "I never want to."

"Then _don't_."

Like always, bits of darkness were pulled from the nooks and crannies of the stone chamber they lay inside and curled around Natsu's body. He was Zeref's brother in that moment, through and through, shadow and bone and fire. But he was also Natsu, still pink skinned and at times _human_. Mostly. "You don't belong in this place. Wake up, Lucy."

She could feel wakefulness calling her. "Stop it."

His lips brushed hers; his hand hovered over her heart, fire licking at his fingertips and warming her skin. "Wake up."

The next time Lucy blinked, she wasn't staring at a cold Hell, she was looking up at a cobwebbed ceiling stained with water. The top floor of this motel on the outskirts of Alverez wasn't what she was used to. The Heartfilia mansion had forever destroyed her standards. Her apartment in Magnolia was a damn _steal_ , and in Crocus… She over-indulged a bit. Without having to pay for damages every time she turned around, she'd had more coin than what she was expecting at the end of every month.

As she watched a large centipede skitter across the ceiling, she thought the universe always took what it was owed. It seemed that it was collecting from her in droves lately. She rolled over, expecting to feel Loke beside her. The bed was empty. She felt his absence like a kick in the chest. She sat up and looked around the darkened room. Only light from the streetlamps made an appearance here and it showed an empty room dressed sparely with furniture.

She sighed, knowing where she'd find him if she cared to look.

Lucy was lowering herself to her pillow again when a shadow in the corner caught her attention. She reached for her whip without fear or ceremony; it lit up with blue and blinding light. She cracked it at the slip of darkness. It evaporated with a cry of pain. She wondered if the Priestess felt that minion leave the world, if she'd be furious or take the hint and leave them alone.

Whatever the answer, she didn't want to stay in her room by herself to see if vengeance would make an appearance in the form of a woman-turned-wolf.

* * *

Old habits were like the undead: ever-present, untiring, without mercy and _horribly_ easy to fall victim to. All it took was tripping over one's own feet. Loke thought the ground tasted like cigarette ash, cheap beer and women's panties.

She was one of the weirdest he'd had the pleasure of taking out behind a bar, she was also one of the most fun. There was very little need to dance around what he wanted from her. In fact, she'd approached him. Half of a beer. That's all it took to get her out here. The other half was to leave his inhibition behind and open his mouth for a red lace thong. She was rough and took his mind off all the things he needed it taken off of. When he was on the verge of coming, she got to her knees and let him know that she wasn't all talk. She was very, very good and rough all on her own without his help. By the end of it, she was red cheeked and sweaty and he had score marks in his legs.

She got to her feet, took her panties from his mouth and stepped back into them. Somehow, Loke thought he could go again.

He heard Lucy's voice and knew he wouldn't.

The woman said nothing. She barely smiled and waved before exiting the alley. Loke leaned his back against the brick wall and did up his pants with less coordination than he'd had even seconds ago. He failed with the button twice. Lucy came around the edge of the building. The button caught, the zipper didn't snag.

"Loke?"

Loke pushed his hair back from his forehead before turning to face her, hoping that would help him compose himself. Believing, for once, made it true. Some of his fog disappeared. He looked at his mage with more clarity than he'd felt in hours. Pale, sleep mussed, holding her hands over her barely visible bump. "Are you okay, Lucy?"

She came closer, booted feet sliding over cigarette butts and puddles of beer. Lucy didn't belong in places like this. "I woke up and you weren't there."

Sobriety was a heavy hitter, taking second place only beside guilt. "Sorry. I just… couldn't sleep."

She stepped beneath the pale light over the _Exit_ of the bar, saying nothing of the woman she saw leaving. "There was a shadow in our room."

"A shadow?"

"Like the Priestess's."

That shitty feeling in his guts only grew. He touched her face, pushing back her hair. "Are you okay?"

She said, "Yes," but Loke knew that look in her eye; she been scared, even if she wouldn't admit it. he gathered her in for a hug. "I'm sorry. I should have been there."

"It's okay."

It wasn't. "What happened to the shadow?"

"I destroyed it."

Of course she did. Lucy did lots not without hesitation. Loke released her and took her hand. "Come on. We'll go back and I'll keep watch while you get some sleep."

"You need to sleep, too."

He shook his head. "I'm alright."

"You haven't been back in the spirit realm for months."

Not for any extended amount of time, no. "I'm okay. I don't need to go back." To go back was to come under scrutiny from one Celestial Spirit King for his absence and that he could not do. Not when they were so close. Well. They weren't truly close. But closer than they had been two months ago when they started this journey.

Regardless, one tug on one thread was all this needed for everything to come unravelled. He wouldn't be the one to destroy Lucy's hope.

_Would not._

"Loke…"

"I'm _fine,_ Lucy. You're the one that needs rest." He hooked his arm around her shoulder and guided her from one of the seediest alleys he'd ever known. She went with surprising ease. Either she was tired or she didn't want to know any deeper than, ' _I'm not returning to the spirit realm yet._ '

At first, Loke didn't think Lucy understood that this journey was going to come at a cost. Now, as they walked back to the little motel room they shared, he thought maybe she understood better than he gave her credit for.

* * *

No shadow dared to appear in the blazing light of morning. Lucy kept her eyes on the tricky niches anyway so she wouldn't be caught off guard. Holes in trees weren't just homes for squirrels or raccoons, they were potential threats, the shadows rocks cast weren't just benign, they had the potential to _see_.

None moved.

She shouldn't have been surprised; the very nature of the Priestess's magic didn't fare well in the daylight. She was a creature of night.

Speaking of. She glanced at her celestial companion. He'd brushed the scent of beer from his mouth and his eyes were no longer glossy; he was tired, though. There were circles beneath his eyes that she didn't think had much to do with his sleepless night. He was pushing himself. Telling him she'd call another spirit didn't seem to matter, Loke wanted to be there with her. She loved his commitment. She hated the way it made her feel to see him a little more bedraggled every day, like she was taking something she shouldn't.

He felt her eyes on him, she knew he did. He opened his mouth. Lucy prepared herself to deliver a lecture about conserving magic and being in peak condition. He said, "That's the castle," and totally sidetracked her.

Lucy looked away from her spirit, gazing over the land that swelled and dipped with hills and saw where he pointed. The former Spriggan Empire's castle sat on the tallest hill in the land. She imagined it was an allusion to safety. She knew how Zeref had kept people safe. He was a thief. He wasn't interested in jewels or precious metal, though, his currency of choice was life.

"It'll take us half the day to get there," Loke judged. "And that's if we find a part in the boarder that's not heavily monitored."

"I don't intend on slipping past their guards," Lucy said. "I want Eileen to know I'm here for her."

Loke developed that wary set to his mouth again.

"I'm not backing down," Lucy told him before he could get started. "She has my answers."

"I don't doubt that," Loke said. "What I'm doubting is that she'll want to share."

"Everyone has a price."

* * *

The boarder wasn't delineated by any physical barrier that Lucy could see, yet she knew immediately when she'd left her country's soil and entered Spriggan's former realm. It was a physical and a transcendental thing. She felt a weight settle over her like a heavy blanket that only weighed more with each step she took through a field of swaying and dry ryegrass.

"What's happening?"

"…Some kind of spell…" Loke trudged, walking like he was moving through sludge while the ground was clear. Lucy took another step to keep pace with him and found, abruptly, that she could not keep her knees locked. The ground claimed her with a speed that was breathtaking. Her knees chirped, unhappy.

Loke twisted back around and almost came to the same fate. "Lucy, are you alright?"

"Yeah…" Getting up seemed an impossibility. Loke made it to her side and then joined her on the ground. She thought it was to sympathize with her, but a look at his face told her that it was a necessity rather than a kindness.

"Ugh. What the hell?" She looked around for _anyone_ but saw nothing but hills and forests and a little stream that dodged in and out of the frozen husks of cattails and boulders.

"I don't know, but we need to—" Loke's words were punctuated by the appearance of a silver light almost identical to that of a celestial door opening. Lucy watched it expand in fascination and in fear, she'd never felt more helpless, as a knight stepped onto the field. His armour, silver plated if Lucy learned anything from Erza at all, beamed in the light of the sun.

"Lucy Heartfilia and Leo the Lion." He spoke through the visor on his helmet, voice resonating like a gunshot over granite. "Her Majesty, Queen Eileen requests an audience."

Lucy looked up at the faceless and towering knight and felt uncertainty. This wasn't the welcome she'd been expecting. Though, admittedly, it was the one she'd hoped for. Ease meant speed, and speed meant she could get to Natsu sooner. "I can't stand."

The set of his shoulders was what Lucy might call displeased. He lifted his hand and the spell faded. Lucy pushed against the frozen soil and clambered to her feet. Loke was there to help her though she didn't need it. She could only imagine what that spelled for the months to come when ( _if_ ) she got overlarge with child.

"This way." Seemingly at the knight's whim, another silver gate opened. He waved Lucy through. Lucy stepped toward it; Loke grabbed her hand and held her back.

"Hang on. What's through there? And what's going through a gate like that going to do to us? She's pregnant, she can't—"

Lucy pulled from his grasp. Cavalier had never been she. But she'd never had so little before. Loke wasn't quick enough to grab her again, Lucy was a wraith stepping into a silvered light.

The transition from a white and golden field of rye to a cold antechamber off of the strangest throne room Lucy had ever seen was as gentle as walking through a doorway from one room to another. Only this time, she'd travelled at least a hundred kilometers in the blink of an eye, not feet.

She didn't see Eileen first; her eyes were taken by the curling vines gifted with thorns as long as nails. Lucy stared at them for too long, knowing what they were capable of. A prick of one and she'd be thrust into a reality of Eileen's making, forced to see whatever the enchantress _wanted_ her to see. The vines tightened, moving like snakes whose muscles bunched in agitation.

Cussing filled the air around her. She turned in time to see an irate Loke being manhandled through the gate. He had an awful lot to say but he clammed up tight when he saw her, trading insults and fisticuffs for her side. She took his hand.

A voice slipped from the heart of a clump of vines. "Welcome to the Alverez empire."

Lucy gave her the respect she thought she'd demand. "Your Majesty. Thank you for seeing us."

The vines quivered in anticipation and then peeled back, one shining and dangerous tendril at a time. Her hair was what caught Lucy's attention first, scarlet, scarlet, scarlet, like Erza's. And then it was her eyes, amber gems blazing with malignancy. Her hands were the last thing that came to Lucy's attention, though in reality, they set her apart from every other person Lucy had ever known. Dragon's hide and dragon's tarsal claws blacker than pitch. They easily dug through the vines and eviscerated them. What was left behind was a weeping mess that coiled in on itself and withered.

Eileen traded her flora throne for one made of black glass. Her steps on the flagstone made clear, decisive snaps that made Lucy wince every time. "What brings you so far from home, Lucy?" Eileen asked once she was settled, her black cloak splayed out around her, satin by the skylight.

Lucy forwent any kind of dance or play at power. "I need your help." That was the simple truth of it.

"Oh?"

"I was sent your way by a priestess."

" _Mai'iingan,_ the wolf," she said without further prompting.

"…Yes."

"I know."

Lucy chewed her chapped lips. "You do?"

"Of course. Everyone is talking about Lucy Heartfilia's _quest._ I was expecting a visit from you. It took you long enough, but by all means, Lucy. Ask your question. _"_ Eileen waved her on impatiently when she just stared.

Lucy cleared her throat and stood tall. "I need a key that will open a demon gate."

"So you can put your lover into your servitude and bring him home. A charming little demon slave."

"I don't want a slave; I want to keep him safe."

"Of course, apologies." She smiled falsely.

"So can you make the key?"

"I could," Eileen said.

" _Will_ you?" Lucy pushed.

"Now _that_ is an excellent question. _Will_ I." She feigned thinking about it. "No. No, I don't believe I will."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't see how helping you will help me," Eileen said.

"I'll do anything you want," Lucy said desperately.

Eileen tapped her long nails on her throne. "There is only one thing I want and I doubt very much you'll be willing to part with it."

"Tell me."

"Erza Scarlet's location."

"…Why?"

Eileen surprised her by responding. "My daughter and I have some unfinished business, Lucy, and she's been most difficult to track. Do you or do you not know where she is?"

"I know."

Loke shifted uneasily beside her; Lucy ignored his discomfort. Eileen waved her on impatiently. "The key first, please, your Majesty." Lucy was no fool.

Eileen looked at her appraisingly. "How do I know that you're telling the truth and not just leading me on to get what you want?"

"How do I know you're not doing the same?"

"I never lie."

Lucy said, "And you're my only hope."

Eileen's smile was razor blade sharp. "That doesn't help your cause. Desperate people do desperate things."

"Like sell out their friends to their murderous mothers," Lucy replied.

Eileen stood. "Valid point. Very well." She held her hands inches apart and closed her eyes. An oppressive magic filled the throne room and made Lucy's head _ache._ Complete blackness came next, all of the light sucked from the room, and airlessness. Lucy heard the crackle of what she thought was flames, and felt the ghost of heat.

The sound disappeared and the next thing she knew, the light was returning to the throne room and Eileen was holding aloft one charcoal-coloured key. The head of it was ornate, the metal curling, and the tip looked like it would fit into no lock ever. There was no magic coming from it at all. Lucy took it from her hand and curled her fingers around it. It was _Natsu's_ key.

"This will open his gate?"

"Once it's spelled."

"How do I spell it?" she asked.

"You only asked me to make it, the rest you'll figure out on your own, I'd imagine," Eileen said.

"But—"

"Erza's location."

"Please—"

" _Now_ or I'll cut you open and spill your baby on the floor."

Lucy backed up. Loke was there to hold her. His voice was strong and outraged. "You won't touch her."

"You're right, I won't have to. I'll make you do the work, Lion," Eileen threatened. "Tell me Erza's location."

Lucy didn't doubt her capabilities and spilled. "The last time we spoke, she was preparing for a climb to a place known as The City of Woe in the most northern part of Fiore."

"I know the area," Eileen said thoughtfully. "And when was that?"

"Two days ago," Lucy said.

"Thank you, Lucy."

Lucy separated herself from Loke, though she was scared. She needed to not appear weak. "What will you do when you find her?"

Eileen shooed her off. "That is between my daughter and I. May your key serve you well."

The knight came to Lucy's side, drawing up the portal again.

"Wait," Lucy said before she could be shoved off. "I'm—I'm looking for a way into Hell."

Mildly, Eileen said, "I know."

Lucy's stomach flopped. "You do?" Of course she did. It seemed like _everyone_ knew.

"Subtlety is not your forte."

"Well… Can you tell me how?"

Eileen said, "The only way I know into Hell is to cross the river and if you cross the river, Lucy, you no longer belong to this world."

"I'm not afraid of dying to do what I need to, but I'd like to come back. Is there a way?" The point was to bring him home.

Eileen gathered a lock of hair between her fingers. "Yes."

Lucy's stomach rolled again. "Will you tell me how?"

One long claw pointed in her direction. "No."

It was so…

Unjust.

"Why not?" Lucy asked indignantly.

"Because you've given the only thing you had of any interest to me. I want nothing else from you."

Lucy almost screamed in frustration. She tried to negotiate. After all, her father had been a businessman. _Some_ of that must have rubbed off on her. Right? "We'll make a pact. Anything you need in the future, you can come to me and I'll do it."

"Listen to me, Lucy," Eileen said slowly. "I don't _need_ anything from you. Everything I want I have, and the one thing I didn't, you just gave to me. Be darling now and get out of my sight before I grow tired."

"Please—if I have nothing then do it out of the kindness of your heart."

Eileen laughed. "The world wasn't built on kindness. That's not how commerce works _._ "

More than ever she felt ill-equipped to do this. _No. You bested the priestess, you got Eileen's cooperation._ And there was no need to burn bridges. "Fine. You're right. If you change your mind, though, I hope you'll contact me."

"I'm sure I will." Eileen waved to her knight again. This time when the gate was drawn up, Lucy stepped through without fighting. Loke was on her heels but Eileen's voice pulled him up short.

"Spirit."

He looked over his shoulder, finding Eileen in a growing mass of thorny vines. "Yeah."

"Your road is leading to treason. I hope Lucy's lover is worth it."

Loke slipped through the gate without response.


	3. Chapter 3

Wet leaves and contrarily, brittle and dry ryegrass dug into Lucy's knees. She stayed where she tripped and landed when she came out of the portal, breathing in the late-winter air, absorbing the weak glow of the sun. The frustration.

The ground rumbled beneath her knees; it was a tremor that began around Eileen's castle and reached out to Lucy many kilometers away.

_Erza._

She had to contact Erza.

First, though, she had to deal with a red-faced Loke as he, too, stepped out of Eileen's gate. He looked at her on the ground; he was a hornet trapped in a jar, though a concerned one. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. I just… My legs wouldn't hold me anymore."

He snorted through his nose and reached for her. "I highly fucking object to all this, by the way. If you care."

"Do I dare ask for clarification?" she drawled with forced nonchalance.

"Asking that serpent for help? Throwing Erza to the wolves?"

Yes. It seemed irrational. She couldn't take anything back, though, and she had to be _certain_ in her choices. "If I cared, I would have asked your opinion." Stress made her sharp as knives.

"Lucy—"

"This whole time, Loke, you've been asking me if I understand what I'm giving up. I do. I do. _I do._ If you're balking, I think you're the one that doesn't get it."

He took his hands from hers so he could scrub his face and yell his frustration into his palms. The vocalization passed as quickly as his fury. He went back for Lucy, calmer, palms skyward. "Can I see you?"

Lucy took his offered hands and let him pull her to her feet. He didn't ask if he could touch her. Maybe before, when she was a different girl, she'd think he was trying to get strange with her. Now, she recognized the look in his eye, the one that came with a heaping amount of concern and almost none of the old heat he used to have when he gazed at her. Their relationship had changed a great deal in the months Natsu had been dead, to the point where Lucy didn't know what they were to each other anymore. Master and spirit were something that belonged to a different Lucy, a different Loke. They were partners, trudging through forbidden magic to bring back the man Lucy loved. She'd frequently thought she was asking a lot of unfair things from Loke. He never complained, though.

He was a good spirit. A better friend.

His hands were gentle roving over her still slightly bumped stomach. "You look okay. How do you feel? Sick?"

"I'm okay," she said. It had been a rough couple of months. She'd asked doctors and nurses and women alike and gotten different accounts of the trials of pregnancy. Some told her that she'd feel ill until she had the baby. Some said that it would pass. Some spoke of rejection if her body wasn't ready. That scared Lucy most of all. This was all she had left of Natsu. What would she do it the baby left her, too?

_You're going to get Natsu back so just stop._

"Are you sure? Falls—" Loke started.

"I'm fine, Loke," Lucy said with conviction. "Everything's fine."

Loke's palms were still on her belly, a difficult to read expression on his face when a voice shattered the moment.

"Lucy Heartfilia."

Lucy turned and searched the rolling field. Her eyes landed on a woman stepping from the treeline not so far away. Pale and short hair framed her delicate face. The expression she wore was obviously lackadaisical as she sashayed closer and closer in shoes that really weren't meant for the terrain or the time of year, much like her clothing. There was so little on her body, Lucy wondered how she wasn't blue with cold.

"Who are you?"

The woman said, "My name is Brandish."

And she was a member of whatever was left of the Spriggan army; Lucy could see the emperors mark on the girl's right thigh. Did Eileen send her out to tidy up any loose ends? Lucy tensed, ready for anything as Brandish approached. "What do you want?"

"It's said that you seek a way to Hell."

Lucy's palms tingled. "Yes."

"I can help.

"How?" Lucy immediately demanded. "How do I get into Hell?"

Priestess wraiths whirled around Brandish, though they flitted in and out of the grass, trying to remain hidden in the darkest shadows. Lucy saw them and ignored them. Loke saw them and grabbed Lucy's wrist, pulling her back a few steps. "Did she send you?"

Brandish tipped her head to the side. "Who?"

"The Priestess." Loke was all suspicion.

"It doesn't matter if you can get us in," Lucy said contrarily.

" _Lucy_." Loke's voice was a whip.

Lucy felt shame as soon as she realized she was again being careless and irrational.

"Get away from us. We don't want anything to do with you or your way into hell. Tell the Priestess if she wants revenge, she's going to have to be cleverer than that," Loke said. Magic was in his hand as he approached Brandish with Lucy in tow, intent on stubbornly walking past her.

Brandish's eyes fell to the earth where she saw the coil of shadow. Disgust came to her face. In one swift movement, she lifted her booted foot and stomped with a decisiveness that crushed the festering shadow to nothing. it squealed before it winked out of existence. "Parasite."

It was that which really made Lucy hesitate. She stopped so abruptly that her hand was tugged from Loke's. The spirit whirled back around and reached for her again but by that point, she was directing her attention at Brandish and demanding, "The Sorceress said there was a way to get into Hell. A way I wouldn't get stuck on the wrong side of the river. Do you know it?"

"Yes," Brandish said, "There is a small gateway in the plains that I open for Neinhart so that he may know the dead."

Lucy didn't know what she was talking about; she didn't really _care_ either, though. "Will you open it for me?"

"For a price."

Everyone wanted something. "What?" Lucy asked.

"I want to destroy you," she said simply.

" _What_?"

"You need to pay for all the pain you've caused my family."

"The pain?" Lucy repeated.

Brandish's nose turned up. "Your mother was a sneak and a whore and a traitor that preferred to do her killing behind the backs of innocent women."

Blood rushed in Lucy's ears. "What are you saying?"

It was Loke, though, that got the most irate. "How dare you?" Sunlight peeked through the clouds, setting him aglow in a way magic could not.

Brandish was cold. "How dare I tell the truth? How dare Layla Heartfilia be such a turncoat?"

"What are you talking about?" Lucy asked finally.

Brandish seethed. "My mother. Grammi. My mother was murdered by Layla Heartfilia while in her service."

"What?" felt like the only thing she could say.

"Stop wasting my time. Fight me. Win, I open the gates. Lose, and you die."

"Forget it," Loke said quickly.

Lucy _couldn't_. "Okay."

"Lucy!" Loke raged and she blatantly ignored him.

"I'll fight you, Brandish, if that's what you want."

"Tonight," Brandish said.

"Okay. Fine."

She didn't look at all pleased by her victory. "There is a condition."

"What?"

"I want you to use Gemini, and I want the spirit to take on your form."

"We'll _find another way,_ Lucy," Loke impressed. She knew what he was thinking without him ever having to say it aloud. Gemini could only be as powerful as she, Lucy was. That was a problem but she was desperate enough to do it anyway.

"Done. We have a deal."

"Meet me outside of Goldenrod tonight at three," Brandish said.

"Okay."

Loke looked on helplessly, though he no longer interrupted.

"If you don't show, I'll take that as a sign and hunt you down, Lucy Heartfilia," Brandish said. Though her words were venomous, the hate didn't quite fill every one of her pores. Lucy had seen real hate; she didn't think Brandish would kill her. Not without great cost to herself.

_You're such a gambler now._

She touched her belly to remind herself that it wasn't just her. She needed to be careful. "I'll be there."

Brandish nodded and faced the castle. Lucy watched her back retreating until the girl was far enough away that she couldn't hear her feet crunching in the dead grass or her bare thighs rubbing together.

"Are you crazy?" Loke asked.

"It'll be fine."

He looked like he wanted to go back to screaming. He breathed raggedly and thrust his hair back from his face. Lucy tried to calm him down with a question.

"What is Goldenrod?"

"A shitty ass bar half a day back the way we came," Loke said contemptuously.

Two steps forward, another back; this whole mission had been such. Feeling punchy, Lucy said, "Sounds just like your scene."

Loke came to stand beside her so Lucy had no chance of missing the exasperated and affronted look in his eye. It was worse when he didn't fight her on it.

"Sorry, Loke."

"Don't apologize."

"It wasn't fair—"

"But it was true." His words were short and clipped and left very little room for argument or the scolding Lucy expected. He didn't even try to tell her that she was stupid. "I'll get us a room there. You can sleep, I'll keep an eye on things until it's time."

Lucy severed the next words out of her mouth. They, too, weren't going to be very nice. _What's become of you?_ She never used to be such a mean girl, especially to her most faithful spirit. All Loke ever wanted to do was help her and here she was, cutting wherever she could. _It's the pressure_. He was under it, too. He was holding it together better than she was.

Loke offered her his hand. Lucy accepted it by way of apology. His fingers were familiar and strong in hers. She wished they were Natsu's.

_Soon._

* * *

Goldenrod the flower was proud and bright and tall. Goldenrod the bar was ashamed, furled and small.

As soon as she walked in, Lucy wanted to walk out.

'Bar' was stretching it. 'Strip club' was the correct adjective. Small, sure, but whoever said small things were lacking? Crammed into the tiny space was a bar, a dance floor, a stage and a slew of girls in skimpy clothing. Loke's eyes were already wandering; Lucy joined him. It was impossible _not_ to look. A girl with hair as white as Mira's approached, her breasts held back by a thin scrap of material. On her hips was a pair of shorts too small to _really_ be shorts.

"Hi." The girl's eyes dropped to Lucy's belly. "Can I help you?"

Lucy wanted to wrap her arms around herself and slink back out the way they came. Loke was more willing to put forth the effort, though whether it was for the girls or for her, Lucy didn't know. "She needs a room and I need a table."

For the girls then.

"We'll get the room first. This way," the woman said.

Lucy fell into step behind her. Loke followed, to Lucy's surprise. Across the beer-soaked floor, past the stage where a girl with hair dark like coffee grabbed her breasts and pushed them together, past an amp and a table full of men with glazed eyes and thick beards, and finally, up a set of stairs. Lucy clutched the handrail as she ascended and kept her eyes on the ground. Cigarette butts were stomped out on the stairs and between them, drinks had been spilled, the patches now sticky, collecting dust and ash and dirt.

On the top floor, their guide went left to room number two and knocked on the door. There was no answer so she pulled a key from around her neck. It wasn't until the girl flicked on the light inside that Lucy could see around her.

Sparse and threadbare furniture, tiled floors and a single mattress. It was questionably clean. It reminded Lucy so much of the room at Briar's Lock back in Magnolia that her breath hitched. She expected to look at the couch and see Natsu lounging with Happy on his shoulder. Or to see him alone waiting on the bed.

_Close your eyes_. He could be there.

_'Living isn't so great.'_

_'That's because you've never been dead.'_

She hadn't been alive for what felt like forever, either.

"Lucy?"

Lucy realized that the girl had left and now it was just she and Loke. "Yeah?"

Now that he had her attention, he closed the door and blocked out the rest of the rooms and the hallway that led back to the bar. "This isn't a nice place."

"No," she agreed.

"But I think we'll be okay here for awhile." As he spoke, he searched, moving around the room with purpose, checking beneath the bed, in the closet, the bathroom. In the heart of the room once more, he drew the dingy blue curtains and blocked out the town of Rose Grave.

_Briar's drapes were yellow_ , Lucy thought. She didn't want to _remember_ the differences.

"It all looks good."

"We need to contact Erza."

"I'll take care of it."

"Are you sure?"

Loke nodded. "Definitely. I got it covered, don't worry about it."

She would have argued more and taken responsibility for her actions if she was the girl she used to be. "You're too good to me, Loke."

He beamed, pleased that she was pleased. "Are you hungry?"

Lucy shook her head.

"Thirsty?"

"…Yes."

Loke came to her and took her hand, leading her to the bed where she sat. The mattress verily _screamed._ It had seen better days. If Loke noticed, he didn't let on. Lucy imagined that he'd seen plenty of places like this.

Loke said, "I'll get you one of Virgo's milkshakes again if you can wait here for a few minutes by yourself."

"I'll be fine."

"Got your whip?" he asked.

"Yes." Always.

"And your keys?"

She tapped her hip. "You'll know if something's wrong anyway." Or at least, he _used_ to. Since he'd started spending so much time in the human world, their connection was getting fuzzier and fuzzier. Lucy didn't want to think about it and Loke didn't want to talk about it.

"I'll know," he said with a certainty that belied Lucy's concern. He squeezed her fingers one more time and then he winked out of the world, leaving Lucy alone on the bed to stare at the wall and think about a different man that wasn't by her side.

When the lights turned off and Loke was downstairs, she'd lean back on the bed and imagine that it was _Natsu's_ hands and not her own working between her legs. She'd imagine that it was _Natsu's_ fingers brushing over her lips and then sliding into her mouth. She'd imagine that she wasn't imagining and then she'd dream. Dream would be the most real of all.

* * *

He'd come into the celestial realm more gracefully in days gone past, Loke thought as he tripped from his gate and landed in a rose garden that was neither real nor fake. He lay there for too long, thorns digging into his body, his skin perforated and bleeding. It would heal soon if he spent any solid time in the spirit realm.

He didn't plan on a prolonged visit.

A fringe of pink hair filled Loke's view. "Big brother?"

Loke sucked in a breath and pushed himself up. His suit was a right fucking mess; so was his hair. He was sure there were bags under his eyes and that his magical power was depleted. It was the kind of thing that Lucy _really_ would have noticed if she wasn't so caught up with everything else. Virgo, though… she had no problem picking out his deficiencies.

"You're spending too long in the human world."

Loke got to his feet; thorns stuck to the material at his back and tore it. With a thought, it was better again. Here in the celestial realm, his power almost knew no bounds. "I'm fine."

Virgo looked at him sadly with eyes the colour of cornflowers.

Loke said, "Lucy wants another milkshake."

"I'll take it to her."

"No," Loke declined. "I'll do it."

"You need to rest."

"I need to get back to her."

Virgo, typically docile, showed her annoyance. "She doesn't need a spirit that's exhausted. She needs one that'll be there if she needs them."

"She needs _me,_ " Loke said.

"Why are you so hell-bent to be the one?" Virgo demanded. "We all care about Princess."

But he'd been the only one that had taken Natsu's scarf back to her. He'd been the only one that had laid with her for _days_ while she sobbed and threw up everything that was in her stomach and sobbed some more. He'd been the only one that had been with her when she'd fooled thugs and priestesses alike when she'd toyed with fate and attempted to cheat the god of death of his most prized possession.

Getting Natsu Dragneel back into the land of the living would be no easy task.

No one _walked_ out of hell. They crawled on hands and knees and left their blood behind.

_This time will be different._

"Please, Virgo. Just go make the milkshake. When I need to come back, I'll come back."

"Do you promise?" she asked.

"Yes," Loke lied.

That seemed to satisfy her. "How is Princess without Master Natsu?"

Loke chewed his tongue. "She's… getting better." Keeping his intentions of bringing Natsu back secret from the celestial realm hadn't been easy. He needed to shield both himself and Lucy from the connection they had to this world, and it was taxing. Add to that the book he'd been desperately hiding between the celestial realm and the human world and he was feeling the drain.

"Will you tell me about her? Is she very pregnant?"

"She's showing," Loke said with a false sense of pride. It wasn't _his_ child, nor was he the one carrying it, but it felt like it was a part of him nonetheless.

"Does she laugh?"

"She smiles." Wanly.

"Does she miss us?"

"Like crazy," Loke said honestly. Especially Aquarius. Aquarius, who hadn't taken herself out of her constellation for months. Aquarius, who wouldn't even see Scorpio.

Virgo smiled. "Does she want vanilla or strawberry milkshake?"

"Mix them both," Loke said.

Virgo bowed quickly and disappeared. Loke gave it a minute. When he was sure he was alone, he reached into the interstitial space between the celestial world and the human realm and pulled at the book that had been laying in the ashes that had once been Natsu and Zeref Dragneel.

Made of some leather that felt far too human for his liking, the book exuded both malice and power. Loke rubbed his finger down the spine, unable to help himself. This was the kind of book that grabbed you up and held you tight. This was the kind of book that bled you for all you were worth.

This was the kind of book that took absolutely everything and left scars in its wake.

It wouldn't stay hidden for long. Already, Loke knew the Spirit King was suspicious of its presence. Already, Loke knew that it was quickly overstaying its welcome.

Though he longed to open the dusty tome's pages, he refrained, putting it back where it belonged before it garnered too much attention and his lies ran thin.

* * *

Fire licked at Natsu's hands as it _always_ did when he was upset. Lucy wasn't scared as he cupped her cheeks and pushed her hair back from her forehead. Dream kept her safe from harm, though she wished she'd burn. If she burned, that meant that this was _real_.

"Lucy." His voice was ryegrass _shushing._ It was water on coals. It was silk and it was acid. His touch was sweeter than honey, moving down her neck, her shoulders, her chest. "Lucy, what have you done?"

She could find no shame. "It's a nice key, isn't it?"

His eyes weren't really fixated on it hanging on a thong around her neck, he was looking lower to her belly. He touched the small bump; he rarely did. "Where did it come from?"

"Eileen made it."

"Eileen?"

He didn't know. How could he? He was taken away from her before Erza could tell them all of her revelation. "Erza's mother."

"Erza's…"

"She's a really powerful mage."

"Of course she is," Natsu said and almost sounded like himself.

"This is going to bring you home. Once I defeat one of the Spriggan twelve and get her to open a gateway into Hell, anyway." She laughed like it was no big deal.

He shook his head. "Stop."

"You're right. I don't want to talk about that anymore," Lucy said. Every second they had together here in dream was precious. There were only so many hours she could spend with him and she didn't want to waste it on puzzling through whatever the hell she was doing in the waking world. She started taking off her shirt.

Natsu brushed her hands away from her shirt. "Stop that, too. In fact, stop coming here. Leave me in peace."

"Why would you say that?"

"I can't keep letting you go."

Lucy latched on to the admission. "Then don't."

"You don't _belong_ here."

"I belong wherever you are," she said stubbornly,

" _No_ , you don't." The fire surrounding his body flamed brighter, got hotter. Lucy felt it briefly and then the pain was gone again. "You need to stop this. It's not healthy."

Lucy didn't even fight with him. They'd been down this road before. She locked her hands around his neck and pulled him in. Natsu was as stiff as a board until she kissed him and then he melted like butter under flame. Lucy took advantage of him without shame after that, forcing him to touch her and grab her and kiss her so thoroughly, she was dizzy. He wouldn't take her clothes off, though. Lucy did it for him.

Unlike the other times, when her shirt came off, Natsu stepped back to look at her. His eyes lingered on her breasts, yes, but it seemed like he was mostly interested in the small bump her belly had become.

"Lucy?"

"Yes?" she breathed as his fingers, hotter than burning oil, slid over her skin in the most amazingly painful way. They stopped just below her belly.

"I hate this."

"You don't mean that."

"I do." He met her gaze squarely as he said it, so she looked into the twin black pits his eyes had become. Gone was the Natsu she knew, here was END. Rage and fierceness lived inside that expression. Protectiveness and irrationality. "Why would I ever want this? That thing's going to hurt you. It's a demon—"

Lucy brushed his mouth with a tender kiss. "Make love to me." There was time to worry _later._

"Lucy—"

"Make love to me," she repeated and took his hands and made him touch her body. His protests died. His lips met her neck, her collarbone, her chest. The tips of her breasts, her sternum. Her belly. He was extra careful there, giving her gentle kiss after gentle kiss, making a liar out of himself. He could say whatever he wanted but she knew he liked her like this.

Lucy pushed her fingers through his hair and told him again, "Make love to me."

He kept her standing while his tongue found her centre. Lucy's eyes fluttered. She pulled him to her body; she whispered his name. She came on his tongue and then sat in his barred lap where he knelt on a bed of brimstone. She came again with her mouth locked on his and him buried deep inside her. Likewise, he spilled inside her without remorse. She thought maybe it'd be the same even if he was alive, even if she wasn't pregnant.

His arms locked around her waist, pulling her in so there was no room between them.

Lucy rested her head on Natsu's shoulder. "I promise I'm going to bring you home."

He said into her neck, "I need you to stop saying stuff like that. Stop _haunting_ me."

"You're happy when I'm here so why would I ever stop?"

"Because every time you leave it hurts."

"Then I'll just stay."

Lucy felt his mouth open and knew there was something downright scathing on his tongue. She never got to learn _what_. A voice that wasn't Natsu's called her.

Natsu leaned back. "It's time for you to go." He looked _relieved._ He brushed Lucy's cheek and kissed her lips. That outside voice called her name again. Natsu said, "It's time to wake up."

"I don't want to go."

"You have to, Lucy."

"Please, Natsu."

He took her by the hips and pushed her into a standing position. The world twirled oddly. "Goodbye, Lucy."

"Wait!" As ever, he never did.

The room came back into harsh focus. Loke stood over her, expression tense, a strawberry-vanilla milkshake in one hand, Lucy's shoulder in the other. "Hey."

"Hey," Lucy said groggily.

"Dreaming again?"

She didn't flush like the first time she told him about them. "Yes."

Loke played along. "How was he?"

"Mad about the baby and the key," Lucy said.

"Who would have thought. Your subconscious knows you're being reckless, too."

Lucy's mouth turned down. "Shut up, Loke."

"Drink your milkshake."

Lucy took it because it was the closest thing she'd get to eating dinner. She didn't think she could keep down a full spread of vegetables, meat, and bread. She slurped it all back in less time than she would have normally. Loke watched her unfalteringly. When the straw sucked up only air, Lucy asked, "What time is it?"

"Almost midnight. You should lie down and get some sleep."

Normally, that sounded like an excellent plan but she only ever visited Natsu once a night. He wouldn't see her another time. Who cared if she slept or not? _You should._ She needed to be clearheaded when Brandish showed. "Will you lie down with me?"

Loke's lips came together in what might have been near-refusal. Yet, he said, "Yeah. Until you go to sleep. Then I'm going to go downstairs and wait."

"So you can be with those women?" She didn't have a right to feel betrayed and yet she _did_. He was all she had here.

"So I can make sure I don't sleep through our meeting with Brandish," Loke replied. "So that we can bring Natsu back."

"You don't think it's a good idea."

"I've _never_ thought _any_ of this was a good idea." And yet, it was his to, begin with.

"You're a good spirit, Loke."

"That's what I'm afraid of," he muttered as he sat beside her on the bed and kicked off his shoes.

"Once we get into Hell, everything will be better."

"Worse, you mean." Loke lied down.

"I meant what I said." Lucy settled into him. His arm looped casually around her middle.

"Then you're confused," Loke told her. "We're going to Hell, Lucy. People lie when they say it's not hot."

* * *

Loke let Lucy snore for an hour before he thought it was safe to—reluctantly—take his arm from around her waist and rise. She was comfortable and it felt _wrong_ to leave her here by herself but he needed to _get up_. If he didn't, he'd sleep, and if he slept, he wouldn't contact Erza and he'd miss waking Lucy up for their meeting with Brandish. And then they'd _never_ get into Hell, which meant that Natsu would never come back and Lucy would forever be miserable.

Exhausted and spirit realm-deprived or _not,_ Loke crossed the room with steps lighter than any human could manage and inched from the room without disturbing her.

The hallway smelled just as pungent as before, like human and drugs and sweat. Part of him _liked_ that smell. It was the same part of him that found himself in that alley behind that seedy bar a couple days ago. The same part that saw the bad decisions as they lined themselves up but was unable to _stop_ acting on them. A year ago, he thought Lucy with her contract and her pleading with the Celestial Spirit King was going to be his redemption but it turned out that people didn't _actually_ change. No. When the pressure got high, he did the same thing every time. Turned to women and alcohol and fucked the stress away.

Tonight as he descended the stairs into the bar, he convinced himself that he was okay with that.

There was a small table with his name on it. The waitress with the platinum hair came to his side and smiled prettily. He ordered from her, two tequila shots and a beer, wanting to be not quite sober but with it enough that he was wise to any tricks Brandish might turn.

The waitress returned with his drinks. He asked her advice on girls, she pointed him to a brunette with hair as dark as coffee beans. Her name was Rachel; she had a pretty smile.

The waitress said that she'd send her over just as soon as she was able so Loke pulled out his communication lacrima. Green glowed from its face until Erza answered on the other end. Her hair was matted and knotted and twisted around her face. Her cheek was scratched and bleeding and there was a sword in her hand, wet from battle.

_You waited too long._

"Loke?" She was out of breath.

"Erza." He stretched the truth so Lucy didn't earn her wrath. "Lucy and I have been trying to get in contact with you. Your mother knows where you are."

Erza's lips pursed. "I've noticed. I've been attacked three times by foot soldiers since noon. How did she know?"

Loke held in his wince. "I'm sorry."

"You told her."

"She didn't leave us much choice. We needed something from her and that was the only price she'd accept."

"What could you have possibly needed so badly?"

"That's Lucy's story to tell," Loke dodged. "I can't betray her trust, just know that it is really important."

Erza was fierce but no one else had such capacity for forgiveness. She softened like melting snow. "Did Lucy make it out of there okay?"

"Yeah."

"And she got what she needed?"

"Yes."

Erza sighed. "It was only a matter of time before my mother found me, anyway, I suppose. Can I see Lucy?"

"She's sleeping."

"Alright. Maybe when she gets up you can tell her to call. Happy misses her. And you."

Loke didn't want to hear it. He offered a flippant, "Maybe. If she's up to it."

The girl the waitress told him about came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his throat, saving him from having to delve deeper into avoidance. "Are you still looking for company?" Her breath was hot in his ear.

Erza's brows came up and her mouth pushed flat. "Is Lucy with you in that establishment?"

"She's upstairs, napping. Look, I have to go, Erza," Loke said quickly. "Be careful." He ended the call before she could say another word. To the stripper, he said, "If you're available then yeah."

Her smile was sultry and practiced. Loke didn't give a fuck if it was an act or not. By the time she was done, he had put on the backburner Erza's plight, Lucy's desperateness, Virgo's insistence that _she_ come into the human realm and his own desire for that goddamn _book_ he couldn't stop thinking about. He offered the stripper extra; she said extra was okay. For his money, she took him not into one of the upper rooms, not into the office in the back, but into the washroom, which perhaps was a step up from the outside?

There was a sense of pleasure that was _missing_ when he wasn't hammered but being mostly sober meant that he put the condom on without issue and he at least _remembered_ to close and lock the bathroom stall door. He supposed if he was staring at the bathroom wall smeared with pubic hair and renditions of dicks and the names of girls in town that gave good blowies, wondering about his life choices, there was no one to blame but himself. He didn't stop and he had to figure that it was because he didn't _want_ to.

Rachel made herself come when Loke didn't bother trying. He didn't know _why_ he didn't care to give her much attention, it felt so much _better_ after she was swollen and soaked and pulsing on his cock. He came shortly after that. When he was through, he tore off the condom, flushed it down the toilet, cleaned himself up with some toilet paper and came out into the washroom again. There was a man with a dopey smile on his face taking a piss. Loke washed his hands while the stripper left. When he checked his watch, it was quarter to three. He had enough time for another shot of tequila and then it was time to wake Lucy up and get on their way.


	4. Chapter 4

Shaking drew Lucy out of the slumber of the dead. _Natsu_ , her mind thought. But no. _Loke_. Loke's hand was on her shoulder. _Because we're going to_ get _Natsu._ As soon as that thought came, Lucy felt alert. _It's time_. Time to go to Hell. Time to think about feeling fear but not because, in her heart, she'd been visiting Hell already for months.

She pushed herself up from the spongy mattress and had to stop when her head spun. Sweat suddenly pricked her skin. Lucy breathed in and out slowly, recognizing that old familiar sickness. She'd been feeling it on and off for as long as she'd been pregnant (pregnant, _gods_ , she still wasn't used to thinking of herself that way).

Loke caught on to her state before Lucy could hide it. He gripped her shoulders. "Are you okay?"

Lucy brushed him off, needing space because she was afraid of throwing up on him. It wouldn't be the first time but she didn't want to relive the embarrassing experience. "I'm fine. Just dizzy."

Loke knew her well enough to see through her lies. "You're sick again."

"I'm _fine_." Even as she said that a wave of pain started in her abdomen and worked its way down.

Loke gave a derisive snort. "Like hell. You can't fight tonight—"

"What are we going to do, Loke, tell Brandish to just wait for a few hours until I feel better again? She'll never agree."

Lucy waited for him to say, _yes_ because they shouldn't be on this route anyway but he led with, "You shouldn't have agreed to her terms so readily; now she thinks we're desperate."

_Because I am,_ Lucy thought. "It'll be fine. We have the advantage. Brandish thinks that Gemini is weak, which means she thinks that I am, that's why she specifically requested them. We're going to prove her wrong."

He would never question her strength, not after the year they spent apart from the rest of Fairy Tail, but he certainly looked like he wanted to object. He chose his battles and focused on the baby, not her magical abilities. "How do you feel now?"

"Better," Lucy said in a gentler voice. "Really," she emphasized, "It's probably just…" Well, she didn't know what it was. "Nothing. It's probably nothing." To put him further at ease, Lucy got slowly to her feet, feeling much more pregnant than she actually was. _It's because you're tired_. She could forget the deep-seated exhaustion if she could just get down the stairs and find Brandish. It was past time to get her journey underway.

Loke held her elbow like she was an old lady and guided her toward the door. "I put all of our stuff in the celestial realm," he was saying. "So if we need anything, I'll just go back and get it."

"Thank you, Loke." She lent him a smile that she hoped made up for all of her crassness. It was hard to tell if Loke appreciated it or not, he'd gotten much better at hiding his thoughts recently.

He helped her back into her boots at the door. He pampered her much more than what was necessary. It was something that had begun when she first lost Natsu and had only progressed as her pregnancy went on. There were good days and bad days as with anything but Loke was always running at eleven without fail. Lucy had long ago given up telling him not to worry about things like carrying her bags, opening doors, hell, even pulling off her shoes. She hoped that when this was through, the adjustment back to normal life would be easy for them both.

"Did you see her when you were downstairs?"

"No, but that was ten minutes ago now," he told her from where he knelt on the floor, tying up the laces of her tall boots.

"What if she doesn't show?"

Loke knew she was only looking for one thing and entertained her. "She'll be here."

Of course, she would be. Brandish felt wronged and wanted the opportunity to set that right. Lucy tried to put at ease another thing plaguing her mind and asked, "Have you ever been to Hell?"

He looked up at her over his glasses. "No."

She'd offended him in some way but couldn't determine how. Was it an abhorrent idea? Were they breaking some sacred oath by doing this? No. Loke would have said something if they were. Probably. "So we don't know where we're going."

"No." he pointed his face toward her toes so she couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"Are you scared of what we'll find when we're down there?"

"Are you?" he turned her question around.

"Maybe."

Loke stood and took her by the shoulders. His eyes were a hazel more green than brown; beneath lay light bruises that Lucy thought she'd been disregarding for too long. "Nothing's going to happen to you. I won't let it."

"And we'll get Natsu."

"Yeah, Lucy. We'll get Natsu." His fingers felt like rigid stalks digging into her skin. He was lying or he was stretching the truth. The definite he put into his voice was false.

Lucy hoped Loke would never stop lying to her. It was the lies that kept her sane. She pushed open the door and re-entered the bar.

Last call was two thirty, meaning everyone downstairs was either well and truly plastered or they were dead-sober, waiting to escort their drunk friends home. Lucy felt like a pariah moving through the crowd with her small but obviously pregnant belly. All eyes that were sober enough to trek toward her did so.

One man smiled widely and looked like he was going to strike up a conversation. His eyes dropped to her belly and he looked like he'd been slapped. Lucy had always been vain. Seeing his hesitation made her burn. But that was okay. Natsu would look at her and he'd touch her and he'd kiss from her neck to her belly and he'd say horrible things but he wouldn't mean any of them.

He'd love her and the baby, too.

She knew it.

"This way." Loke took her hand, further scattering men's gazes and helped her off the stairs and through the thinning crowd.

_Natsu,_ Lucy thought _. You're going to see Natsu_. Her stomach was all knots. She was again wishing that she hadn't drunk that milkshake, that she'd remained laying down. "Do you see her?"

"Not yet." Loke drew her past a pool table with balls still littered across the face. Apparently, though someone had paid for a game, they didn't think it was worth completing.

Lucy thought he'd take her to a table but he palmed open the bar's door and brought her outside.

The night was cold. Cold enough that Lucy's breath clouded and lingered; cold enough that bits of snow drifted from the sky. It would be gone by morning, taken away by the weak early-spring sunlight. For now, Lucy tipped her head back and watched it come. The last time she'd seen Natsu, it had been hot bleeding into cold.

Loke stopped beneath one of the sidelights outside Goldenrod and leaned his back against the brick building; one foot kicked against the wall, the other supported all his weight. His hands went into his coat pocket. They didn't stay there. He pulled out a package of cigarettes. He opened them, looked at the perfect white cylinders thoughtfully, then put them away again.

"It's okay," Lucy told him. "You can smoke."

"The baby won't like it."

"I'm far enough away."

"So I'll forget about the smoke. Come closer."

She pinched her lips together and shook her head. "Go ahead, Loke." It wasn't fair that he altered his behaviour entirely when he was near her. "Please."

He sighed and brought out his smokes again. Lucy watched the cherry light and smelled the faint tobacco in the air. Loke never used to smoke. At least, not in the time he'd been her spirit. Maybe before in what she had come to think of as the 'Dark Days'. The days when he'd been mourning Karen and hating himself. This was a habit he'd adopted about a month ago. Lucy didn't actually mind the smell. Her father used to have a pipe every night after dinner. She found it comforting in a strange way.

"Do you think Natsu misses us?"

Lucy had asked that exact question so often, Loke had his response primed. "Of course. I think he's going to be happy to see you." Smoke came from his mouth as he spoke. He kept his eyes trained on the sky. Lucy followed his gaze and found he was looking at the Lion constellation. As always when he was summoned, the tip was missing its brightest star. The whole thing looked a little drabber without it. _Or maybe that's just the way it looks now_. He'd been away from the celestial realm for so long.

The closest Lucy could get to asking if Loke was okay was saying, "How is Virgo?"

Loke finally looked at her. "She's good."

"Does she ask about me?"

Loke took another impatient haul off his smoke. "She did tonight. I told her you were good, that the baby was fine, and that you missed everyone."

Lucy let out all of her breath so her, "Good," sounded weak.

Footsteps scuffed over pavement. Lucy looked back over her shoulder toward the street and saw a woman slowly meandering down the centre, uncaring that carriages and magic vehicles moved by every now and again. Some passed too close to her. Did she flinch? Not Brandish. She was apathy personified.

Until she looked at Lucy. And then she was dulled rage.

"Lucy Heartfilia. You came. What a shame."

_Because she_ wanted _to hunt you down and kill you_ , Lucy thought. Only she didn't believe it. Recently, she'd made a career out of reading people with that goal and Brandish lacked conviction. Lucy didn't push her on it; people were unpredictable after all. "Thank you for coming."

"Don't," Brandish barked. "Don't thank me, whore spawn."

Lucy winced but thought, ultimately, she could take one on the chin if it meant stepping foot into Hell and being that much closer to Natsu; she let the comment go. "Where do we go?"

With a curled lip, Brandish said, "This way," and started around the building into a narrow alleyway. Lucy followed. Loke was beside her. He'd dropped his cigarette and had taken her hand. His skin was cold. It was comforting all the same. She could feel the connection between them, the solid partnership they'd built. She didn't know what kind of mage Brandish was but Lucy had never felt more powerful.

The heels of her boots got caught in the cracked parking lot and alleyway. Even when she'd freed herself, she twisted her ankle on broken glass and other debris. It was getting progressively darker, the moon only making cameo appearances whenever the clouds deigned to roll by.

Loke used his magic to ignite the way, a ball of gold light giving the alleyway a gilded quality. It would have been beautiful but for all the garbage. The ground glittered not with gold or silver but bronze: smashed beer bottles. The air smelled not of damp soil—spring runoff rich with phosphorous—but of crushed and soggy cigarette butts, decaying garbage.

"Where are you taking me?"

Lucy's voice seemed to grate on Brandish; her shoulders got stick-straight. "In a field behind the bar."

"And where is the gateway you promised?"

"If you win?" Brandish reminded her.

"Yes."

"In the field behind the bar."

"You know how dumb it sounds that the gateway to Hell is behind this dumpy bar?" Loke was feeling tetchy. Lucy squeezed his wrist, willing him not to piss Brandish off unnecessarily.

"It's more of a crack that I will widen. And," she looked back over her shoulder, her hair brushing her chin. "Why is that so hard to believe? Hell is all around us, spirit, just like the celestial realm. You only need to step into it."

Loke's mouth cinched closed; Lucy's couldn't help but pull into a smile. _We're close_. So close. She had her key, she had her way in. Now she just needed to win her fight and step through.

The alley terminated in a field of burnished gold cattails, still crushed after months of being trapped beneath winter snow. Brandish glided over them in her sandals, never faltering or cursing that her toes got wet. Lucy, on the other hand, was sporting a boot full of water and Loke didn't fare much better, judging by the way he cussed.

"You better not be lying to us."

"It's here," Brandish's voice came out like a song. Soft, lulling, with notes of tension beneath that would allow for the build into a fast-paced chorus.

Lucy, vigilant, gripped her whip's handle and felt the power strum through it. It moved through her and into Loke. He jolted, she felt it through their clasped fingers and breathed heavier. He could whine and complain about their situation all he liked, she knew that as a battle spirit, this, marching into Hell, facing violence, this was what he was made for, this is what he _longed_ for. So he didn't want to do it with a pregnant woman on his arm, but he didn't get to make that choice, she did.

Lucy was feeling almost untouchable as Brandish stopped at the edge of where the field turned to swamp. Overhead, the moon peeped out of the clouds again and made her glow as brightly as a will-o'-the-wisp, and revealed a writhing night. In the corners where the moon made dark hollows in rocks and old, craggy trees, shadows lived and twisted. The Priestess was watching.

_Waiting_ , Lucy thought. Days of separation hadn't made her any less furious. _Can she get into Hell_? It seemed silly to be fearful of a creature that spent her time living in the human realm when she was literally waltzing into the devil's house.

She was afraid, though.

Loke's magic filtered through their clasped hands and Lucy forgot what that meant.

"Will you really do it?" Brandish asked. She wasn't afraid of the shadows. "You'll really fight me?"

"Yes." Lucy was all conviction and proud of herself for being that way.

"Then we shouldn't waste any time."

"Agreed." Lucy pulled out her keys and called, "Gemini." She hadn't held those golden objects in this capacity in months, she had Loke for everything she needed, meaning when she pulled on the magic and imagined a celestial door opening, it exploded with energy and Gemini came roaring into the world, excited to be there.

Their faces were almost without features, exact replicas of each other and strange, though pretty in the way foreign things were.

They bobbed and zeroed in on Loke accusingly. "You should return to the spirit realm. You've been away from home for a long time." Their voices overlapped one another to create an eerie echo.

Loke said, "You're here to fight, Gemini."

"The spirit king asks where you've been," they said in a show of blatant disregard.

Loke's face was a mask. "Your master's summoned you to fight. Fight."

Lucy felt their eyes turn to her, those four perfect black pits. They were looking for direction. "Take my form," she commanded and without any further fight, Gemini's magic came forward.

Though they looked the same as the old Lucy did, the spirit's power matched Lucy's, she could feel it through their strong magical connection. She didn't allow it to go to her head; she didn't want to mess up this chance to get to Natsu.

"Aries," was the first spirit Gemini summoned. She came out of her gate much in the same manner Gemini had, full of gusto and leaning on the side of manic, her brows pulled together and her mouth caught somewhere between a frown and a scowl. She attacked Brandish without any simpering or provocation like she usually needed.

"Taurus," Gemini called while Brandish was dodging Aries attacks and the bull suddenly appeared with his axe swinging. It cleaved through the dirt where Brandish's feet had been, making the sodden earth tremble. Aries combined one of her attacks with Taurus' and the next time the bull swung, the blade scraped across Brandish's shoulder. It left a razor-thin line of filth but missed just enough that it didn't split the skin. Lucy's anxiety was misplaced; she cared only that Taurus left Brandish alive to open the gate.

Brandish looked at the mark dispassionately. Taurus hefted his heavy axe and brought it down in an over-hand swing and Brandish sidestepped. The blade dug into the ground and she slapped the palm of her hand against the flat metal; the blade rapidly changed size, getting so small that it slipped from Taurus' hand and he fell forward, suddenly off-balance. Brandish's magic reached out and got hold of the bull, too, and Taurus was suddenly the size of a pea. She lifted her sandaled foot and brought it down mercilessly and Taurus was banished back to the spirit realm.

"Oh!" was all Aries got to say before she met a similar fate.

Lucy was surprised but not discouraged. "Keep going."

Gemini summoned Cancer and Scorpio. Brandish's leg was abraded by one of Scorpio's sand attacks and her side was scraped by one of Cancer's scissors. A flurry of movement followed after that and the tang of blood filled the air. Brandish was hurt. Not down, though. She fought viciously, belying her earlier lethargy, and got the upper hand. Cancer was the first to go because he needed to be closer but in the end, Scorpio was treated much the same way.

Brandish focused her attention on Gemini.

Lucy brought out her whip. It shone with blue magic and crackled loudly. It wrapped around Brandish's leg, leaving behind welts, and threw her a distance. She landed in an icy cattail pond and went through. Shallow water lapped at her ribs. She sputtered and gasped in protest and scurried to her feet.

Everything inverted for Lucy. Suddenly, she was looking up at the sky through a dead forest full of stagnant ponds. She was confused at first until she felt footsteps rock the ground and saw a foot lift over her. She got drenched by a droplet of water falling from Brandish's heel and couldn't back up soon enough.

Gemini saved her a terrible fate, using her copy of Lucy's whip to wrap around Brandish's throat and pull her off balance. The spell broke and Lucy was large once more, sitting on her rump in the middle of a damp field, soaked and freezing, but at least she was her proper size.

Brandish took the whip in her hands and made it so large and so heavy, it was useless, and fell from her neck in a heavy coil, looking like a snake. Brandish stepped over it and went after Gemini again. The spirit turned small.

Lucy lunged to keep Brandish from dispelling Gemini, too, and pushed Brandish off balance. They both went down, Lucy on her side and Brandish on her back. They tussled, and Lucy felt an elbow dig into her cheekbone. That was going to leave a mark. She balled her hand into a fist and hit back. Brandish gasped almost comically.

Fingers closed around Lucy's bicep and pulled her out of the thick of things. Loke stood her up and pushed her back. "Enough."

"No!" Brandish hissed and clambered to her feet.

Loke said, "Yes. This has to stop."

"That wasn't the agreement. We're to fight until someone wins."

"You don't want to win," Loke said. "You want to kill her."

"She knew the risks."

"She's right," Lucy said. "I did know."

"You're both insane."

Lucy could see the logic in his conclusion, honestly, but she didn't care. She looked past Loke to Brandish. "I'm ready."

Brandish lowered her stance. Loke huffed. "Summon me, Gemini."

Gemini found a spot on the earth that wasn't saturated and took out Loke's key. The gold glittered by the light of the intermittent moon. "Open, Gate of the Lion."

Loke faded from Lucy's side and appeared at Gemini's, looking more than ready for a fight.

"It won't matter which spirit you summon, you can't beat me," Brandish said.

There was a time when Loke had been cocky and fluent in trash talk. Today he was silent and pensive and brimming with violence. Lucy felt him gather magic from Gemini who in turn reached through to Lucy. Lucy pushed and pushed all of the magic she had at the two. She'd like this to be finished as soon as possible.

Loke's light dulled in a way that scared Lucy; changed a strange gold-black. It circled around his fists and reached up his arms and looked like it was going to consume him. Loke seemed panicked at first, Lucy could feel his magic fettering through hers as he tried to regain control, and then together, they came to the same conclusion—things had changed for Lucy and so they had changed for Loke, the spirit she was closest with. Once that was decided, things got easier, he found his centre and stopped panicking and his magic stopped feeling so foreign.

When Loke attacked, he kept some distance between he and Brandish so she didn't have a chance to use her magic on him. The patches of grass where his magic hit crinkled in the heat of his light. Brandish went on the defensive when one of those attacks whooshed by her leg and Lucy smelled burning flesh, darting back and dodging where she could, attacking back where she could not. Loke was adept at evading her and eventually, had her pinned at the edge of a slushy pond.

Loke swung and the cattails around her head withered and Brandish stepped back. Her foot caught on a log and she went sprawling, half in and half out of the pond. Sensing the end, Lucy pushed with all of the magic she had left and Loke's magic got duller and spread like the plague, the grass around him turning black and dead. Lucy looked on in awe; Loke didn't hesitate, though, lifting both hands, fingers clasped together, and bringing them down in a wide sweeping arc.

"Loke!" Lucy yelled and a millisecond before impact, he altered his trajectory and hit the ground beside Brandish's head. Everything in a fifty-meter radius withered and died.

Silence followed, punctuated by Loke's haggard breath and Brandish's shivering.

"Close it," Lucy demanded of Gemini and Gemini rushed to send Loke back to the celestial realm. He didn't fight and disappeared from view. That done, Lucy dismissed Gemini, then tried to help Brandish out of the water.

" _Don't_ touch me."

"Alright." Lucy lifted her hands and stepped back while Brandish made the awkward climb back to shore. She was covered in mud and dripping wet and miserable looking, her frown looking permanent when Lucy asked, "Will you open the gate now?"

Her fingers squeezed and her eye twitched. Lucy expected another fight. She felt Loke's key get hot on her hip and helped him through the gate, careful with how much magic she used. Brandish eyed him carefully.

"Your magic's changed."

Lucy willfully ignored her assessment. "Will you open the gate or not?"

Brandish nodded her head. "Very well."

Lucy's heart skipped beat. _This is it._ "What should I expect when you open the gate?"

Brandish said simply, "Fear."

She turned her palms skyward. Wind grabbed her hair and her sparse and soggy clothes and pushed both around in a flurry as her magic rose. It was incredible; Lucy had never felt anything like it. Suddenly, she didn't feel so powerful. Her confidence was a yo-yo; when she was high, she was so high and low, she knew what the ground tasted like.

Loke stepped closer to her just as the ground rumbled. Lucy clutched him without reserve. Beneath her feet, soil roiled and split and more magic buffeted her as, like a rotten maw opening to swallow her whole, the earth spread wide, ugly like it had never been before. And pitch black. There was nothing to be seen at Brandish's sandaled feet. Lucy's palms were sweaty tangled in Loke's jacket and her stomach was knots.

"This is she." Brandish lifted her voice to be heard above the now-howling wind. Her clothes were being tugged in a different direction, the void below her acting like a drain, sucking in leaves and twigs and bits of cattails, air, and hope. "Go, Lucy Heartfilia."

_Go_. Lucy looked at all the blackness. Her legs felt like twin pillars, rooted in the ground. _You have to move. Natsu's in there. He needs you._

Thinking of her dragon slayer-turned demon gave her the courage to untangle herself from Loke. Remembering his kiss was what moved her legs. The ghost of his hands was what pulled her to the edge. And then it was black writhing wraiths that grabbed her in viciously cold coils and hauled her down. Loke's hand closed on her bicep last second so she didn't fall alone. The only thing that accompanied them in was their screams.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Shadowy coils tightened on Lucy's biceps, her ankles, and even her throat. Every part of her body was being touched. She writhed to no avail and when she came to realize that there was no pulling away physically, she did the next best thing and focused on anything other than the coldness that dragged her down an unending hole in the earth.

The thing that centered her ended up being Loke. Loke who was with her, Loke who was falling, too. Lucy gripped his arm tight enough that it must have hurt. His skin was colder than she thought it should be. That didn't stop him from returning her hold, from pulling her in and wrapping protectively around her.

"We have to shake these things!"

Lucy realized that while the wraiths hadn't been doing anything to her, not yet, they were tearing into Loke, ruining his shirt and the skin beneath glistened with runners of blood. Lucy reached for her magic and gave everything she had to her spirit. Light was birthed. All at once, the wraiths screamed, as scared of the light as the priestess had been, and fled.

Without them as a barrier, Lucy hit something hard on her ribs and all of her breath exploded away. _That was stone_ , she thought seconds before she hit again and was spun around. Now Loke was facing down and Lucy was looking up, up, up at all of the things they'd passed. On all sides was brimstone; they fell through a long shaft tinged red by the glow of some small living beasts that Lucy couldn't rightly see, for every time she thought she could focus on one, it slipped into a crack in a wall and the light was extinguished. Her mind imagined them as fireflies and was satisfied.

Loke cursed and twitched. Lucy realized that he'd grabbed something and was trying to slow their descent. Whatever it was broke with a dry crack. They free-fell for another ten seconds before Loke tried again and succeeded in finding some purchase. They came to an abrupt halt. He grunted in pain because his arm wrenched and huffed and then Lucy was being swung up on a shelf. Cold stone brushed her fingers and it felt so, so familiar, the stone beneath her hands, that she did nothing at first, too shocked that they'd done it. They'd made it into Hell. Natsu was here in this vast spiral of the unknown.

"Lucy!" Loke gasped and she remembered how to move. Her arms wobbled as she pulled herself up on a craggy, yellowed stone that stunk like sulfur. She got to her knees and turned back around to help Loke. His fingers were white around an ugly tree that was blackened and cracked and half-rotted, looking more like a twisted and punished corpse than flora. That alone might have given Lucy pause but really, it was when she looked over Loke's shoulder and down into the gullet of what could only be a hungry beast that she choked. Where was the bottom? All she could see in the occasional and sporadic burst of red light was yellow stone, black, writhing and living shadows, and a thin spiraled staircase that wrapped around and around forever. It could have terminated into nothing and no one would know.

"Lucy! Help me." Loke reached with his free hand and grasped at air. Lucy focused and grabbed Loke before he fell and she was stuck by herself. She heaved and Loke scrabbled and eventually, he was able to hook his elbow over the ledge and do the rest of the work himself. He rolled onto the stone and panted, exhausted.

"Shit."

"Are you okay?" Lucy asked.

Loke rolled his head on his shoulder and looked at her. So long passed that she didn't think he'd respond. "Fine. The baby?"

Lucy touched her belly at the same time the ground rumbled and something far, far down the dark tunnel screamed. Was it a man? Was it a beast? Was it some kind of amalgamation of both? Here in Hell, anything was possible. "What was that?"

Loke didn't look concerned as he sat up. "We'll deal with the terrors after. How is the baby?"

Lucy sighed. "It's fine, Loke."

"You didn't hurt yourself? I saw you hit the stone."

Lucy touched her ribs tenderly. "I'm alright." Bruised but she wanted a little bit of independence still so she kept that to herself.

"Do you need anything?"

"I'm fine," Lucy said. "Let's just... get up and start walking." She started to rise. Everything sort of ached. Loke was in worse condition, his skin was actually torn open and weeping but he was slowly, slowly knitting back together.

"Walking?"

"How else are we supposed to get to Natsu?" Lucy replied, short with Loke for his incredulous tone.

"Don't you think we should get our bearings—"

"Ask someone for directions?" Lucy asked sarcastically. "I don't see a soul, do you?"

"No, and I'm thankful for it," Loke muttered. Louder he said, "Where do you think we should start?"

"Down." That was the direction that made the most logical sense because all of the stairs led that way.

* * *

Loke had been right. No one said hell was hot because it would be a lie. Lucy lost track of time and direction as she walked, freezing, through a downwards spiral whose only feature was unending brimstone alight with small red fires that extinguished when Lucy got close enough that she could see. The only thing she knew about those red flames was that they were alive and that they lived in the rock crevasses.

The stairs she trekked were carved out of the stone by some ancient and powerful hand and time hadn't done them well. Some crumbled at the edges, others were nothing more than lumps of pulverized stone that tried to roll Lucy's heel out from beneath her. Whenever that would happen, her heart would leap into her throat and the blood would roar in her ears because that pit was a long way down. In the times when Lucy wasn't scrabbling for purchase and Loke wasn't trying desperately to keep her clumsy body upright, Lucy's mind wandered. She thought about Natsu. She could almost feel him in this place. She thought about the baby—the periodic cramps were coming back with a vengeance and she tried to smother the pain beneath the effort it took to stay on her feet—and she thought about the trials they'd face.

"What do you think we'll find down here?"

"Nothing, hopefully," Loke muttered.

"That's unlikely."

"I can hope."

But it's unlikely," Lucy clarified.

"You used to be more positive."

"I used to be a lot of things," she said glibly. Loke said nothing. Lucy let him have the quiet for a second, then said, "When we do run into something, I'm not worried."

"Glad that's one of us."

"Don't be like that. You did really great with Brandish."

Loke's eyes fluttered her way and she saw the uncertainty in them. She asked the question he didn't want asked anyway because that's what good masters did, right? "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Your magic was different."

"So was yours."

Fair. "Do you think it's the baby?"

"That's weird, Lucy. No. I don't think it's the baby."

She felt her cheeks get hot. "You don't have to say it like that. It could happen."

"It's a baby. It probably doesn't even have all its fingers and toes."

"You think it's malformed?"

He shook his head. "No, I mean—" He paused, then sighed exasperatedly. "I don't know what I mean. I don't know anything about babies."

"Me, either."

Loke looked relieved; Lucy realized he'd played her out of interrogating him. She circled back around and peppered him again. "Did you feel different when your magic was doing that stuff?"

His shoulders dropped. "I felt _fine_."

"And now?"

"Fine."

"Call light."

"Gods. Why?"

"Do it."

He couldn't disobey a direct order and summoned a small sun. It was bright white, but in its heart, Lucy caught glimpses of darkness. She tried to pinpoint the cause. "It has to be me." She pushed magic through the celestial gate. Loke's skin knitted itself together at a faster rate than it had previously and his light got more luminous.

"Not you," Loke said decisively and let the magic go. "I told you that was stupid."

"Then what's going _on_?"

"I don't know, and it's not hurting anyone so just drop it," Loke said with finality.

"That makes me a shitty master."

"Not if I ask for it."

Silence came again until Lucy slipped on a rock and stumbled ungracefully into the wall.

Loke sighed. "You're tired."

"I'm not—"

"And hungry. All you've had was a shitty milkshake. Lucy, you have to take care of yourself," he said sharply when she was about to protest. "Let's just stop and…"

"And you'll leave me here?"

"Only for a minute. I promise."

Lucy wanted to argue again but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she _was_ tired. And maybe a little hungry. "Only a minute?"

"Yeah." Loke stopped and faced her. "Sit down and relax. When I get back, you can eat and I'll… I'll study the book. We need to figure out how to enchant this key."

The key. Right. She'd been so focused on getting to Natsu that she didn't think about what she'd do when she got there. "Alright."

"You have your whip?"

"Yes."

"And your keys?"

"Yes."

"And you'll call me if anything happens?"

"Yes," Lucy said.

"I'll know anyway." It seemed Loke needed to speak the words aloud to comfort himself. "Of course."

"Just go, Loke."

"I'll leave this for you." He made another ball of light, this one as bright as the last, and set it down in front of Lucy where it continued to glow. Then Loke drew a gate into the spirit realm and looked at her one more time before stepping in.

The silence that came after was deep-seated; it permeated her body and made her skin tingle. Before Lucy sat, she checked the shadows and crevasses for intruders (Natsu) but only saw those weird fireflies, even the shadows had retreated. She lowered herself to the cold stone and touched its puckered surface. _Has Natsu seen this rock_? Had he touched it when he came through? For whatever reason, believing that he had made her feel better. She laid her palm flat against it and imagined his foot, months before, stepping where she touched. If she closed her eyes, it was easier.

In her mind, he walked the path alone, trekking downward without hesitation to where he didn't belong, because Natsu was afraid of nothing. _It doesn't matter how brave he feels_ , _he shouldn't be alone_ , Lucy thought and fell into step beside him. He didn't look at her. She touched his gnarled hand, his knuckles rough from too many fights, scarred, and felt heat. Such intense heat that her skin pricked. Lucy opened her eyes, sure that it wasn't just in her mind, and was greeted by one of the fireflies. It lingered around her finger; she could see now that it wasn't a beetle but a small sprite-like creature that burned and burned without feeling any pain. It reached for her fingers with gnarled stumps for hands that looked like they were made of scorched stone and Lucy let it touch her because it reminded her of Natsu.

She felt no pain, just an intense sense of disorientation. The stairway and the tunnel faded and she was taken back to the brimstone garden where she touched the walls of cold stone and let her fingers slide. Here, too, the area was lit with hundreds more of those firefly-type things. They buzzed and dipped and zoomed.

The way the world bled at the edges let Lucy know that while it felt real and the ground felt solid, it was not. This was another dream. It was because of that she didn't rush to Natsu when she rounded a jutting corner and found him staring at a tall brimstone wall.

His shoulders were wide and straight like they always were. His hair was even longer than the last time she'd seen him alive, and pulled back, cinched with a tie. The clothes he wore were the same he died in; they always were. Across his neck and seen through the burned holes in his shirt was black runes scorched into his skin. Sometimes, they weren't there at all, but when they were, they moved beneath Lucy's fingers as she touched him. She longed to run her fingers over them. They would feel cold, unlike the rest of his body.

Lucy didn't bother saying hello; she took her coat and unbuttoned it. It didn't fall to the floor without noise; Natsu's already stiff shoulders stiffened further and Lucy knew that he knew she was there for him.

"I told you not to come back."

"You made love to me, actually," Lucy said. She felt powerful during these talks. Natsu couldn't seem to help himself, he would reach for her automatically and Lucy would know that all of this strife she was slugging through was for a reason. Her shirt came off and joined her coat. Her pants went next. When she was standing nude, she waited for Natsu to turn. Either one of his hands pressed against the stone wall and his head dropped between his shoulders.

"Will you look at me?"

He said only, "You can't be here."

"It's where I belong."

"It's not—" Natsu started. Lucy cut him off sharply.

"It is. It's where you are and so it's where I am and when I'm ready, I'm taking you home."

"This is my home," Natsu said quietly.

"Look at me." She commanded it now and Natsu couldn't seem to disobey. He turned like he was rusty and seized and looked upon her with a war-torn gaze. As always, his eyes lingered on her form, the obvious places catching his attention: breasts and hips. He also looked at her belly, though, and developed an expression between pleasure and horror. Lucy took one and dismissed the other.

She lifted her hand in invitation and Natsu came unglued. Three long steps brought him toe-to-toe with her and Lucy welcomed the closeness. She touched scaled arms and didn't flinch for the sharpness. Her skin split and she'd almost trained herself to think the pain felt good.

Natsu took her hand and popped her bleeding index finger into his mouth. His tongue was silken and his mouth was hotter than lava. Lucy let her eyes close and basked in the sensation—Natsu touching her waist and her behind and her thighs, his tongue working over her finger and her palm and terminating on her wrist. She gasped when he bit her—hard enough not just to leave marks but blood behind; his teeth were sharper now than he knew. He didn't apologize and she didn't ask for one, either, because she couldn't think. She kissed him and he groaned lowly.

Lucy's head whirled. She wasted no time, as there was never enough of it. Her free hand had a mind of its own, sliding up Natsu's arm to his shoulder and then down. The further she travelled, the harder he breathed. It was a trajectory that kept up right until she reached her destination and then he gasped and bowed into her. His kiss intensified and Lucy poured herself into it like a woman starved of water. She undressed him without care. So what if his body was different than before? The scales only hurt some of the time. So what if when he looked at her, she didn't always recognize who looked back? So what if he told her awful things like kill the baby? She never would and Natsu would thank her for it. Maybe not today, maybe not next week, but someday.

He sank to the floor on his knees and Lucy knelt down and turned so her back was to his chest. She liked it like this; his arms would wrap around her and he'd be buried deep and every time he thrust, his fingers would clench around her breast and his lips would brush her shoulder and Lucy would know Heaven in Hell.

Natsu slid in without issue. Lucy closed her eyes and forgot everything.

* * *

Breaking into the spirit realm was like coming up for air. Celestial magic roared into Loke's form, healing him almost immediately, and for moments, he felt like himself again, the Loke without his magic tainting, the Loke that was before Karen Lilica started his decay and he tried to finish the job for her. The Loke that was when Lucy was his master and she was in her right mind.

Grief changed people and sometimes he felt guilty for indulging her. Most times, it was easy to get lost with her and he didn't mind so much. After all, on this path, he could fight like he was made to. He was a spirit forged for battle. He could take out the book Zeref left behind and study it's crumbling pages, study its tainted magic. He could enjoy the way it felt beneath his fingers.

_You need to hurry, Lucy is waiting_. And he didn't want to leave her in Hell on her own, not for anything.

"Big brother." Virgo always seemed to know when he came home. Loke turned and found her sapphire blues. She looked just as perfect and just as cold as she always did with her shoulders rigid and her mouth a flat line. They must have made quite the contrasting pair. He knew that his suit was rumpled and that his hair was matted. He knew that his skin was too pale. "You came home."

"Just for a minute."

"You need to _rest_."

"Not now."

Her disapproval was blatant but Virgo had other questions. "Where is Princess? She feels distant. And I can't pass through my gate. It's like I don't have enough magic. This has never happened before."

He couldn't tell her that Lucy was in Hell and _that's_ why it was so hard to pass through the distant dimension. She'd have him drawn and quartered in front of the spirit king before he could blink. He fumbled and outright lied. "It's baby I think—it's pulling on her magic..." He trailed off while he tried to think of a way to escape.

"Does it have Master Natsu's magic, too?"

Loke was relieved she'd asked. "It's too early to tell."

"I want to see her for myself. Will you take me back with you? If we pool our magic, we can make a gate wide enough for us both to pass through and Princess won't get tired."

"She doesn't want to see anyone," Loke said without shame, and hell if it wasn't true, and hell if it didn't make him feel a little bit unique. He was the spirit Lucy leaned on. He thought that pride was lost to him long ago but Lucy revived it.

"We're her spirits," Virgo complained. "All of us, not just you."

"I'll tell her that you asked about her," Loke said.

"Yeah, but we want to help."

Loke got inspired. "You can help by making me something for her to eat. She's hungry."

"A real meal?" Virgo sounded appropriately excited. How easily sidetracked she was.

"Yeah. I'll meet you back here in a few."

Virgo showed her teeth in a smile and she faded away. Loke, too, closed his eyes and imagined the place he wanted to be. When he opened them again, he was somewhere new, somewhere choked in fog. Here, the ground was amethyst and covered in a web of auburn roots. Loke stepped into the weedy rose garden. It was a secret place where no one else dared to go because here was where he buried the key ring that had belonged to Karen Lilica, this was her celestial grave. He wasn't even going to make her one but so long had passed and he was still drowning in guilt. 'Burying' her had helped.

He came into the golden glow that was unique to his section of the celestial realm and approached the mausoleum. Its walls were living, made of more roses. As it was a part of him, he could make this place look any way he wanted and it seemed to him that decorating with a flower that was beautiful and painful was just perfect for a girl like Karen.

Loke had been walking with sure steps until he felt a dark pulse of magic that had him freezing where he stood. His skin lifted in goosebumps and he basked in the feeling, repulsed, intrigued, as he had been during his fight with Brandish. The magic ebbed almost as soon as it came.

_Move._ Lucy was waiting. Loke felt rusty. He put one foot forward and touched the living mausoleum. Rose vines peeled back with a quiet ruffle of leaves. They were in front of his face and bathed in the gold light before Loke realized that there was something wrong with them. The leaves were mottled and brown and curled. At the slightest touch, the fronds broke off and fell where they got lost in the rooty floor. Loke pinched his tongue between his front teeth. His mind was running in overdrive because this place was a reflection of him and thus a reflection of Lucy and if it looked like this what did that mean?

The magic was back again. Loke reached through the opening he'd made and fished the book out. It looked the same as it always did, leather too pale to be cow hide, elaborate script in the language of demons. Loosely translated, the title read _The Book of End_.

No periods.

In Loke's hands, leather sang and his heart pulsed and all he could think about was all the power he held in that very moment. And how he was going to get it back to Hell without alerting Virgo—and, he supposed, once he was in Hell, how he was supposed to mask the magical beacon it was sure to be. If he wasn't careful, demons would come from far and wide, attracted to its rotting call. It was risky, but it was necessary. In those crinkly pages was the answer to making Natsu a spirit tied to Lucy and Loke wasn't going to learn how to do it by keeping the book here and flitting back and forth between the human realm and the celestial realm to read for a couple hours at a time as he'd been doing.

Like a petty thief, he opened his jacket and tucked the book beneath his arm. It was bulky and awkward and if anyone held him up for any amount of time, he feared that they'd know—not just that he was hiding something, but exactly _what_ he was hiding. It seemed so obvious to him. _Maybe because it's touching you_. Someone not so close to it might not feel it the way Loke was. It was making his head spin.

"Big brother?"

Loke jumped guiltily and turned; Virgo was where she was never meant to be. Karen's grave was private, she knew that.

Virgo read his outrage and rushed to apologize. "Sorry, but you've been here for a long time."

Loke reserved all of his sweating for the human realm where he couldn't control every little bit of the environment on his whim but just then, he swore sweat slid down his temple. "I have?"

"An hour almost, in Lucy's world. Isn't she hungry? I can take this if you want to—"

Loke almost forgot about the book under his arm when he snatched away the basket Virgo held aloft. "No. Get out." She looked like she'd been slapped. Gentler, Loke said, "Thank you for your help, Virgo. I'll tell Lucy you said hi. Now please get out. Nothing personal, you know I don't like anyone in here."

Her form wavered in pale light and then she was gone. Loke breathed out. He looked back to Karen's grave one more time, though he didn't have time, not when Lucy was alone in Hell and had been for an hour, somehow. What he saw injected even more fear into his chest. The roses that had once made up the mausoleum were browning even worse than Loke originally thought, the whole left side of the small cube that jutted from the ground at chest height, had turned black and was falling away to dust.

Putting his back to it assured that he couldn't see it but it wasn't a sight that would leave him easily. Loke drew a gate and stepped through, relying on his connection with his mage to bring him all the way to Hell. When he did this, it was a thing that lasted just a split second, a teleportation spell, really, but he was moving between realms and he always imagined it as a long and brightly lit tunnel into the spirit realm. Into Hell, the tunnel turned dark and things watched him, real or imaginary, he didn't know, and reached.

Sharp-clawed hands slid over his suit and Loke knew it wasn't as imaginary as he'd hoped. Voices from nowhere whispered, urged by the power of Natsu's book, and Loke knew fear. He stumbled from the tunnel and ended up on the brimstone steps he'd left Lucy on; it was a cause for celebration that he held out on. He spun a circle, ready to fight if need be, and saw nothing except his mage. She lay on the ground and a small firefly demon buzzed by her ear. It was making a sound, low and gentle, almost like speaking. When it saw Loke, it lifted into the air and winked out right there, a master of space and dimensional travelling itself.

Loke dropped to his knees and hovered. Beneath him, Lucy's cheeks were flushed and her neck was red, her breathing feathered and Loke knew too much of what she dreamed about. She was waking up, though, the sound of his arrival brought her from whatever place she retreated to. He touched her arm and hoped that she'd feel him and the connection between them and not panic. Her eyes fluttered and she came awake gently as he hoped.

"Loke?" she asked in a hoarse voice.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes."

"One of those bugs were here. Did it touch you?"

She did a quick assessment. "I'm okay."

She looked it, too. He examined her anyway, lifting her hands and turning them palm up, checking up her arms, which seemed to be bruised but he chalked that up to the fall into hell, and her neck and touching her belly. Nothing. Lucky Lucy.

"Seriously," Lucy said exasperatedly. "I'm fine."

"I just want to be sure. We're a long way from home here."

"Thanks."

Loke sat back and Lucy sat up awkwardly. He watched her reorient herself in reality and then excitement came over her as she realized that not only had they made it to Hell, they were still there. Nothing had come to eat them. Brandish hadn't torn them out of the hole she'd made. No one was telling them to turn around. They were there. This was _happening_.

Loke's heart still lodged in his throat when he felt the ground rumble more powerfully than before but this time, neither he nor Lucy asked _what was that_ ; he only surveyed the area and searched for demons. "We're going to have to be more careful now."

"I know."

"No," Loke shook his head. "I mean, even more. I have the book, Lucy. I need to really start reading it."

She looked up sharply. "Can I see it?"

He didn't know if it was wise but he'd never been good at denying her. He handed it over and she ran her fingers over the _End_. She was seeing Natsu then. "Demons are going to be attracted to it?"

"Can't you feel its magic?"

"Yes."

He almost asked, _aren't you attracted to it?_ but he didn't want to know how it felt if she said no and he realized that it was just him. "We'll be extra careful. No more falling asleep if I have to leave you here, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good." He had to pry the book from her hands. To smooth things over, he held up the food Virgo packed away and smiled. "Your gourmet meal, Madam. Courtesy of Virgo."

Lucy accepted the package and though her eyes kept drifting to the book, she started taking things out. Virgo had gone overboard as usual and Loke was glad. There was enough food there to feed a small army and while it was all things with minimal seasoning, it was full of nutrition. Chicken and peas and baked mini potatoes, bread. Salad and a slice of cherry cheesecake to end things off with. Lucy ate the cheesecake first. Pregnancy had given her a real sweet tooth. Loke watched her eat and only curled his nose up when she added cheesecake to her chicken and jammed it in her mouth.

"How was Natsu?"

She closed her eyes and went some place Loke couldn't go. "Waiting."

He fingered the book's leather. "It won't be long now."

Eyes still closed, Lucy smiled and looked at peace.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thief and villain quote here is from Through the Looking Glass. And I made up a word. Writer's prerogative.  
> Thanks for reading so far.

There were books Igneel would read to him that quoted philosophical things about the passage of time

_'Time is a thief and a villain'_ , one of them said. For Time took everything. It took and it took and it took and when it was done, everything was used and ugly and the _details_. The details all faded in the minds of men. It was a tragedy. An appalling affront of the highest magnitude. When a person was on the cusp, all they had left were memories and Time— _Time_ —your memories were the only thing it really wanted.

Igneel corrected the philosopher and told Natsu that first Time gave. Time gave and humans were the villains, for wasn't it villainous not to appreciate the minutes granted to them before they were stripped away?

Natsu didn't _care_ when he was young. He didn't have _time_ for philosophy. He wanted to learn magic. He wanted to be a dragon slayer. He wanted to be a dragon, just like his dad.

Some things were impossible. A boy could not be a dragon anymore than a dragon could be a boy. There would always be a dichotomy between them. A dichotomy that Time with his infinite finicity could not change. Igneel was never concerned, not like Natsu. He knew what to expect, just like he knew what to expect when his last moments had come. There were sacrifices to be made and he was ready: Time took nothing from him that Igneel didn't readily give up. The cost the day Black Dragon came to Magnolia? Everything. Igneel gave everything to protect his loved ones.

Natsu didn't understand. He didn't understand when he was small and Igneel left him. He didn't understand when he was a man and Igneel returned only to perish before his eyes, until Time came for him, Natsu. Until he opened his arms and embraced his rotten brother. Until his fires became Time's weapon and burned both he and Zeref from the earth, saving all which he held dear. Sparing Lucy. Sparing Zeref. Giving unto his brother the death he so desired. Easing four hundred years of ache. Stitching a wound so unnatural, the earth rejected Zeref's very existence.

At first, Natsu walked into Hell's core with his head held high. He was a demon. Not only that, he was Zeref's demon. And this was where he belonged. The role hadn't knowingly been his for long but adaptivity was what he did.

Zeref walked beside him in those first days, solemn as ever, sorry that Natsu remained suffering but glad to be dead, and when Hell's denizens tried to collect one of them for their own, justice was swift and without mercy. You could die in Hell. You could. And your destination was nowhere spectacular. Natsu had seen into the abyss. He'd glimpsed the blackness and the fear that existed as a singular fabric and he wished that fate upon no one. That never stopped him from protecting what was his. The hovel he'd taken for his own. His sanctuary. Where he lay mostly unbothered, staring up at the brimstone ceiling, remembering all of the things Time had taken from him.

Zeref wouldn't join him. He repented in quiet solitude, hunting down Hell's most wicked and delivering unto them a grim fate. He could never rest. He could never not know conflict, at least, that was as it seemed to Natsu. Even when Natsu begged, Zeref would return for a single cycle, and then he was gone again. The bodies would pile up. Hell would get quieter. The demons that would add Natsu to their bellies became less and less.

That morning, (Natsu had started keeping an arbitrary count of the hours. The fire sprites that were drawn to him took their meals several hours apart and he'd come to clock their first meal, when they fed on the moss and strange bugs that called Hell home, as morning) he closed his eyes again before he deigned to wake, and did what he always told himself he shouldn't—he reached for Lucy. It was hard to have her there, even in dream, for when he woke, there was always a hollowness in his chest, but it was worse not having her there at all.

As punishment for the reprieve he sought, his mind did cruel things. It changed her body. It told him that there was another she carried. His. His child. _His._ It made her sweet as she touched his face. And sad. It made her kisses desperate and her body needy and he… he gave everything. Everything he had. He gave to her. It wasn't much. What boons could he offer? They existed within a great divide now, and he without a way to ease the burden his mind insisted she bear. All he could give her were words, and they weren't even beautiful. _Get rid of the baby, Lucy. Stay away from here, Lucy. Wake up, Lucy, wake up, wake up, Lucy, because none of this is real_. Vain attempts at hurting her, even the false projection she'd become so that she may retreat into his mind and the temptation would be _gone_. He could no longer use her image to punish himself, plaguing him with all of the things he could have no longer.

It never worked. Lucy's ghost was as tenacious and stubborn as the _real_ her. She would strip herself of her clothes. She would lie down in his brimstone garden. She'd tell him to make love to her and he'd torture himself all over again.

It was the sweetest way to suffer that Natsu could imagine.

He heard footsteps and expected that when he opened his eyes, he'd see Lucy. Hoped. And his wish was granted.

She stood in the cave's mouth looking like a realistic dream. Her eyes had bags beneath them and her lips were chapped. When she said his name, though. Gods.

_Gods_.

He loved to hear his name spoken from her mouth in her voice. It wasn't always so. Sometimes, he'd have nightmares and the voice she'd use would belong to someone else, someone wicked and cruel and vicious. An imposter trying to fool him. It would pass. She would always come back to herself and thusly to him.

Natsu held off on answering her just to hear her say his name again. "Natsu?" She stepped forward out of a fold of shadow with her hand outstretched and he was helpless, all he could do was stand and reach for her, too. Pull her in, marvel at how he shouldn't be punishing himself like this but how he could not help it.

Lucy wasn't helping his resolve. She _whimpered_. When he touched her, she leaned into his hand against her cheek and she sighed, her relief a physical thing. The torment. Oh, the torment. It was beautiful. Natsu kissed her before she could ruin it with any words like, _'I'm coming for you. I'm going to bring you home. You and me and the baby. We have a baby, Natsu. A_ baby.' She would always look scared as she said the last and her fear was a catching thing, reality or not. So was her excitement. The moments after she left, the withdrawal would leave him breathless. For all his bolster and hope, he would _never_ rather physically suffer in hell than have Lucy's ghost visit him telling him sweet lies, showing him all of the things he could have had were he someone crueler. Were he someone that left his brother to suffer.

Lucy took his free arm and wrapped it around her body. Each time he saw her there was a little more space between them, her belly getting bigger. She did everything in her power to make that irrelevant by pulling him in without heed. Had she always been so needy and had he always been so accommodating? He couldn't remember. Not that he could remember much. Each day that passed without the sun to mark its birth and death was a day that his old life got a little more distant, a dream fogged. Something that happened to someone else, something he only learned of through tales.

"What is it?" Lucy asked. "Aren't you glad to see me?"

She always asked this, and Natsu always struggled to find a way to tell her _no._ "It hurts."

She brushed her fingers over his cheek and hurt him a little more. "It won't for much longer. Loke and I passed by this graveyard today and met a creature. It spoke." Natsu's mouth was dry long before she finished speaking. He gripped her wrist tightly; she didn't notice the pain, continuing her story. "Loke was spooked. Not me, though, I asked it where to find you and it told me, Natsu. It told me and I'm going to be with you soon."

"Lucy?"

She searched his eyes. "Yes?"

It felt like warning her away was playing into his twisted fantasy. He couldn't help it. "Don't. Don't go near the patch."

She took his warning for confirmation and smiled. "You know about the patch? I knew the creature was telling the truth."

"No. No, you don't understand. You can't go near there, Lucy." He was squeezing her wrist even tighter now. She finally made a wince.

"Don't worry."

"It's not _safe_."

Her face pinched. "Nothing in this world is _safe_ , Natsu. _I don't care._ I'm coming for you."

She was starting to get hazy around the edges as she always did just before she disappeared. It didn't seem fair that he didn't get a chance to banish her this time, it was like being hit extra hard when she leaned in and kissed him, a heavy press of her lips against his, and then she was gone. Her absence left him _cold._ Natsu leaned against the wall and gasped in fetid air, shivering, ensnared in a memory of his first few days in Hell.

Zeref was ahead of him, silent as he navigated the strange spiral that led to Hell's Core. He never needed any light because Natsu's fires ignited the way. The flames bounced off the stone walls, the stone stairs, Zeref's pale skin and raven black hair, off the protruding _white_ of bone. Zeref stopped first; Natsu pulled up behind him and studied the scene. A mass graveyard. The earth belched skulls and femurs and vertebrae. It regurgitated phalanges and tibias. Collarbones and rib bones. Were they all human? Natsu didn't get a chance to look close enough, for above, a creature descended on a web made of hair. Its skin was gone in patches, but where it remained, it was beautiful. The most beautiful he'd ever seen. One eye was alive and the green of the ocean, the green of envy, the other was dead and grey. One side of her mouth was full, the other chapped, the skin broken and rotting. She was contrast, beauty and not ugly, no, but fear.

' _Demon and his keeper.'_ Her voice belonged to the dead. Dry, wispy, forgettable. _'Where do you travel?'_

Even in his ignorance, Zeref stood tall and guided the conversation. "We don't know."

_'Then you are lost. Needing direction.'_

"We need nothing."

_'Something. Zeref Dragneel. Everyone needs something. Let the Queen of Bone's handmaiden tell you. Your path lies ahead. The Morels will guide your way. Follow them into the patch.'_

She was gone without further intrusion but the events that had followed took hold of his dreams when Lucy would not.

"Natsu?"

Zeref's voice was unusual in this place. Natsu lifted his gaze from where it was fixed on the floor and found his brother. Pale skin, black hair, black eyes deeply bruised beneath. Death had been kind to him; he looked unchanged in that he still looked human. It was unfair. Natsu's body altered to reflect all the ugliness inside but Zeref… Not even Hell dared to challenge him.

"What is it?"

"Your book."

His book. He remembered the scored leather, unnaturally pale. _END._ The book that wrote his fate, gave him power and gave him pain, the book that changed everything. "What about it?"

Zeref said simply, "It's here. In Hell."

Natsu looked at Zeref for a long time. Zeref did nothing but let him. Finally, Natsu said, "Get out."

"Did you hear me?"

"Get. Out."

"You felt it enter. You must have."

Natsu ignored the way Hell shivered beneath his feet days ago. He ignored the way the fire sprites flitted agitatedly around and disappeared for sometimes hours at a time. He ignored _everything_ because he wasn't _interested_ in these games. "Stop."

Zeref acted like he hadn't spoken. "Things will be interested in its appearance."

"Leave me, Zeref."

"Things that won't hesitate to kill Lucy to get it."

"Don't speak her name!"

Volume and rage never made Zeref flinch. "She's here for you and she's already caught the Queen's eye. Will you go to her?"

Natsu pressed his hands against his ears, childishly. "Stop tormenting me!"

Zeref's breath came out short. Natsu heard his feet on the floor; he almost never heard his apparitions take their leave. This one was very convincing. Then again, the Queen usually was when she made plays like this to lead him astray.

Natsu leaned his head back against the wall and let himself slide down to the floor. There, he breathed in and out steadily, remembering Lucy while the fire sprites zipped in and out of the cave and sipped from his fires.

* * *

Lucy blinked herself awake. Loke was there, as ever. His face was concerned, his hands on her arm tight. He had the appendage lifted up to his face. Lucy squinted, trying to see what it was he studied so carefully. Her wrist. It was a little bit swollen, a little bit bruised. She wasn't as concerned by it as Loke was—quite the opposite, she relished the mark. It belonged to Natsu and now it belonged to her.

"How did this happen?"

She opened her mouth to tell him of her escapades but closed it again. Loke was already on edge. The creature on the bone pile had him twitchy, the book he carried made him sleepless, and too long out of the spirit realm was wearing him down. It was a recipe for disaster. But Loke… Loke wouldn't leave her side, not for anything. There were times Lucy caught him looking at the book that was emblazoned with _END_ and thought he was really there for _that._ The way he looked at it, the way a man looked at a lost love, made her want to snatch it away from him and bury it someplace safe.

She wouldn't. That book was the key to bringing Natsu back.

"Lucy?"

"I'm fine, Loke."

"You're bruised."

"I must have slept on it weird or something." She brushed him back and pushed herself up with effort. Her belly felt significantly bigger than when she'd visited Eileen Belserion just days before and she was exhausted and uncomfortable. Her lower back and her feet and even her insides didn't feel right, displaced.

Loke caught her wincing and helped her stand. Brimstone didn't make a good bed; Loke's coat didn't make a good blanket. Hell didn't make a nice home, either.

"I'll wait here," Loke said when Lucy was standing and she sighed. Being in Hell didn't mean that the body stopped. She ducked behind a rock and pretended that he couldn't hear her pee. When she was through, Loke was waiting for her with his coat in hand again. Lucy accepted it because it _was_ getting colder the further they descended. Loke did up as many buttons as was possible and Lucy's encroaching chills dissipated.

"What do you think we'll see today?" Loke asked.

It had become a bit of a game for them over the last few days of travel when something became very apparent: Hell wasn't as exciting as Lucy suspected it would be. Mostly, it was long walks down a winding and featureless road. The most excitement they had came late into yesterday, when they met the handmaiden of the Queen of Bone, as she called herself.

She was primed with a slew of helpful things that she said she'd give up for a simple price: she wanted to see Loke's light magic. She liked the way it glowed, she said. Nothing was gold in Hell. Lucy ordered him to show her; they needed all the help they could get.

Afterward, the handmaiden warned them not to go near the fountains on the fifth layer. Don't stray to where the will-o'-the-wisps burned bright, don't walk after the grackles cried. And, most importantly, follow the Morels to the patch, because that's where people said a great fire demon slept. Loke was suspicious. Lucy was hopeful.

"The patch," Lucy replied and Loke looked at her sourly.

"I thought we decided that we _weren't_ going to follow the witch's directions?"

"She was the handmaiden of a queen, not a witch," Lucy corrected, "And _you_ decided, not me. I say we try it."

"Lucy—"

"Loke," she returned in the same tone.

"It's dangerous."

"This entire mission is dangerous." Lucy faced the appropriate direction and started to walk.

"Okay, that's fair, but we don't have to throw ourselves into blatant traps to find him. We can do well enough on our own."

"We don't know it's a blatant trap."

"That thing wanted to see my magic so she knew what she was up against."

"You don't know that."

"I've been doing this a long time," he argued, "I know a play when I see one."

"If she wasn't lying and we don't check, we'll be wasting our time walking _past_ Natsu." Lucy stepped around a massive rock and thought she saw the shadow behind it, cast by Loke's magic, twitch. But when she looked more closely, there was nothing there. A seed of unease tried to sprout; she tore it out by the roots, merciless.

Loke sighed. Lucy mimicked him and got his glare. She smiled. He didn't.

"We'll be cautious, Loke, but I have to look. I _have_ to."

"I know," he lamented and squeezed Natsu's book tighter.

Lucy tried to gauge the passage of time by how many steps she took. When she reached three thousand, five hundred and thirty-one, she figured they'd been at it for about an hour, and Loke hadn't said a damn thing. She tried to break the ice.

"Did you find anything in the book?"

"Nothing helpful."

"There has to be _something_."

He gave her a _does there?_ look that Lucy ignored. Zeref was a great mage when he was alive. He knew all kinds of magic, and in that book was the secrets to life and death. There _had_ to be some _inkling_ as to how to make Natsu a Hellfire spirit.

They completed one full spiral, coming down further into Hell by a few feet, and then Lucy saw what the handmaiden of the Queen of Bone had promised—a path sawed into the rock that led away from the spiral staircase, lined with mushrooms. Morels, guiding her way.

Toward Natsu, Lucy thought even as she reminded herself to be objective. Loke was right, the handmaiden may have been lying.

Lucy stepped onto the footpath and Loke put his hand in hers. Even when he disagreed, he was there by her side. Which was dangerous; Lucy found herself pushing everything that little bit further because he wouldn't say no.

"How many days do you think have passed?"

Loke, who had experience counting the seconds in different dimensional plains, said without hesitation, "Three."

Three days since Brandish opened the crack into Hell. Three days closer to Natsu. She imagined the reunion clearly: she'd find him in the spiracle room. He'd be standing with his arms against the wall, head hanging between them. He'd sense her presence, he always did, and he would heave a huge and exasperated sigh. He would say he didn't want her there but he'd be lying. As soon as he stood, as soon as he faced her, he would crack. He always did.

"Lucy?"

She'd been so busy daydreaming she hadn't noticed that the terrain had greatly changed. Gone was the smooth brimstone and here were thin layers of broken shale, the steps uneven and gently curving upward while the walls of the tunnel were widening into a chamber. She looked up the slope and, by the light of the ever-present fireflies, she saw that at its peak was a throne of bone—sharp, protruding bits of yellow-white moulded into an uncomfortable looking chair—sitting atop bulging ground—when it burst, what would it spill? Lucy had an idea, they'd seen another mound like this just the day before. Sound came to her: the dry laughter of desiccated jawbones rubbing together, the sharp clack of dead teeth.

"Let's turn around," Loke said lowly.

For once, Lucy didn't fight, it was obvious that Loke was right and they'd been led astray. The way to Natsu should never be this sinister.

Her back was to the throne when the ground burst and bits of bone came rattling down the slope, hitting her ankles and then her legs. It hurt but it would have been okay had the wave not increased, bringing sharp, jagged ends to dig into her skin. Lucy's cry was warped as she felt her balance get stolen from her. Down she went, hands outstretched to break her fall. Loke did what he could to help keep it gentle, half catching her and half falling, too, and it almost worked, but now both of them were on the ground and layer after layer of bone was taking them away from their mission. Loke swore and tried to shield Lucy with his body; the sheer force forced them further apart. Lucy held her breath and bowed around her middle, praying—something she hadn't done in a long time. Would her words be welcomed in Hell?

Like her prayers had been answered, the sound of the avalanche abruptly stopped. The quiet was resounding for two of Lucy's haggard and rough breaths, then Loke whispered, "Are you alright?" She couldn't see him for all of the macabre debris they were caught in but when he reached through the rubble, she could still feel his hand close on hers. They weren't so far apart. "Lucy?"

"I'm—I'm okay."

He shifted slightly, trying to rise. The pile of bone wasn't incredibly heavy, but there were sharp bits here and there and it smelled like old meat left to dry in the sun. Lucy was afraid to open her eyes to see why, certain that she'd find bones not entirely cleaned after whatever ate them finished and added to its hoard.

Loke asked, "The baby?"

"We're okay, Loke. We just have to get out of here." Lucy did what she could to get on her side. It was easier than she thought possible. Bits of bone rattled off of her while she sat up. She tried not to look at them, not all of them were human, but the ones that _were_ , they weren't always of an adult size. She put her hand down and pretended that she wasn't using the skull of some nameless and faceless and hapless to get to her feet.

Bone rustled behind her and hands closed on her elbows. Lucy didn't panic for a whole heartbeat, confused because if Loke was getting up in front of her looking sickly pale, who's hand was on her elbow?

' _Hell is no place for children_ ,' said a voice nebulous and airy and dry. ' _We welcome them all the same.'_ Those hands moved from Lucy's elbow to her ribs and then to her belly where it touched gently, long fingers sliding over the swollen bump as they might a gem. _'Precious girl.'_

At the sound of the creature's voice, Lucy felt all the edges of her panic soften; it was a process she couldn't explain. Without turning from where she stared at a Morel garden on the opposite side of the chamber, she squeezed out the first question that would come to her. "Who are you?" That was a logical thing to ask, wasn't it?

_'Handmaiden. Handmaiden to the Queen of Bone.'_ Another one.

" _Lucy,_ get _away_ from her." Loke finally staggered to his feet and grabbed Lucy's wrist where Natsu had before. He pulled her hard. It hurt enough to waken Lucy from her stupor. She stumbled into Loke and… into another creature rising from the bone. Despite its origins, it had flesh on its face and a silver wrap on its body. It was _beautiful_. Hair spun like gold. Eyes blue like the ocean. Blue like peace. Cheeks flushed the red of raspberries and lips of the same colour.

_'A baby. A baby in Hell_.' Lucy turned and took in the first handmaiden, too. It— _she_ —didn't look like she belonged in Hell. She was beautiful like the other, hair of the deepest brown, fresh-turned earth, eyes gun-metal grey, the grey of tranquility. Her long-fingered hands brushed over Lucy's belly reverently. ' _The Queen will love your gift._ '

"Queen?" Lucy was very, very vaguely aware that her voice had taken on a dreamy quality. Everything was soft once more. Where was her fear? Where was her panic?

' _The Queen of Bone._ '

Yes. Of course. The Queen of Bone.

"What are you talking about, gift?" Loke spat out when Lucy was too paralyzed for such.

' _Everyone who enters Hell must pay their dues to the Queen of Bone. She decides_.'

Bones whispered around the dark-haired one, repeating her again and again, _'She decides_.'

Loke moved in front of Lucy. "She decides _what_?"

' _You're agitated.'_

"Tell me what you mean!"

Neither of the creatures spoke but Loke's eyes moved to Lucy like _she_ had. A strange look befell him. Lucy made her lips move. "Loke?"

His gaze shifted over her shoulder where his bruised eyes saw something else—somewhere else and all of the fight fled his system. It was unnerving, the way his tense muscles just went slack.

"Loke?" Lucy's voice finally quivered. She cinched her hold on Loke's hand. He didn't acknowledge. "Loke—"

"It's alright, Lucy."

The sound of his voice stapled Lucy in place and put a halt on her rising panic. She needed a moment before spinning and finding him but when she did, her knees got weak. This Natsu stepped straight from the past, the last day she saw him in Magnolia before Zeref's army hit and her life changed forever. This Natsu only had one hand that was slowly turning scaled, the other still human, this Natsu still had the ability to throw her a mischievous grin. This Natsu. _This Natsu_. He was her Natsu.

His touch on her elbow was warm like fire. Lucy tipped her head back and looked up and her heart pitter-pattered. Time and space and sense got buried beneath the physicality of the moment. Natsu was _here_ at her elbow. Natsu was _here_ , touching her cheek and it felt more real than any dream she'd ever had. The handmaiden didn't lie. She'd found him.

She forgot about Loke at her side and, like a leaf bends toward the sun, she bowed into Natsu and looked at him expectantly. He didn't make her wait or beg, he kissed her, long and slow and thorough.

His hands on her body were rough and the breaths that hit Lucy's cheek were cold. Very distantly, she knew, she _knew_ when his tongue brushed over her lips that something wasn't right; he didn't taste the same. The more seconds that passed, though, the less able she was to distinguish why exactly that bothered her. He made a muffled moan of pleasure and palmed her breasts and then moved down over her belly, lingering where he hadn't been brave enough to in her dreams.

" _A baby_." His voice was the rattle of bone. He moved to her hips.

Lucy's foot slipped on something smooth and round and she was falling. She hit the ground, landing flat on her behind; she didn't even bother getting her hands out. She blinked and it was like a cottony veil was pulling back. Loke was twenty steps away and the blonde beauty had her hands on his middle, rummaging in his coat. Looking for something while she engaged his mouth. Lucy couldn't really see her face, there was hair and Loke in the way as he kissed her, but she was able to see her hands while they palmed her spirit and left him disheveled, and they were no longer soft and pink, they were mostly without skin, the nails at the tips of each finger festering and green with puss that marked Loke's shirt.

When Lucy realized that the handmaiden was trying to steal Natsu's book, she rose. "Hey!" A hand stopped her. It was no longer Natsu's, belonging now to the brown haired… _creature._ Lucy watched, transfixed, as right before her eyes beauty atrophied. Grey eyes were milky white, full red lips were black and wrinkled, the skin on its jaw so thin, bone could be seen. Knowledge dawned on Lucy. Sickened, she wiped a hand over her mouth even as she scurried backward. She tripped again and went down. The handmaiden loomed over her.

' _Stand_.' It extended a pale and bony hand while it spoke and its visage tried to meld with Natsu's again but Lucy wasn't falling for it a second time.

_Get up, Lucy. Get up. Otherwise…_

She didn't need an ultimatum. She stood more decisively now that she had a very distinct purpose and pulled her whip out from beneath the folds of Loke's jacket. Its tip snaked across bone and made a dry drumming sound, like a mallet ticking across a xylophone, its music dark and low, but when she cracked it at the creature's feet, the sound echoed off rock and bone a hundred times, as loud as a firework.

The handmaiden did not flinch. ' _You don't want to hurt your love.'_

Lucy blinked and when her eyes came open again, she _almost_ believed that Natsu was there with her. the handmaiden was gone and she was looking into eyes as black as a starless sky. _It's not real. It's not._ However much she _wanted_ it to be true. She told the handmaiden, "You are not Natsu." And then she wasn't.

The handmaiden's expression darkened as soon as she realized her illusion would not work. Her once soft-looking hair curled in a nonexistent breeze, then, like it had undergone a transformation, hung limp as flowers left too long in the sun. By the light of buzzing fireflies, Lucy watched her face rot further as she crouched like a predator hunting its prey. She did not speak; she did not gloat or scare Lucy with any whisper-quiet words. She didn't need to; Lucy was scared enough.

She cracked her whip again except this time, there was no warning strike, she hit the handmaiden in the face and the skin over her eye split and putrid smelling goo oozed out. It screamed its annoyance and scuttled forward like an earwig over the bone. Lucy yelled, she couldn't help it, and swung her whip again; its arc was accompanied by a blast of white light—Loke's magic. It seemed he, too, had woken from his stupor and was finally ready to fight. Lucy didn't dare take her eye off her target, though she listened to Loke curse, because her handmaiden, pushed back from Loke's attack, was only waylaid for a moment. As soon as the light died, the creature was there, recovered, and ready to fight for what she wanted.

_And what is that?_

The baby. Natsu's book. Everything in the world Lucy would die to protect.

She lashed her whip again as the handmaiden reached for her and ripped the thing's remaining skin from its wrist. Again. Its neck swelled and tore. _Again._ Half of its face fell away. Lucy was reeling back for another volley when a black thread emerged from shadow and cut through the handmaiden. At first, the creature only looked confused. Then its middle started leaking more black goo. The blank expression on its face was replaced by something else—horror. It took a step backward on its hands as if that would keep its middle together. Of course, it could not. She split in two separate pieces before she turned to bone and slumped into the pile.

The ground rumbled; bones jostled. There were _things_ in that pile that was struggling to rise.

"Lucy!"

Lucy found Loke. He was reaching for her though he was on his hands and knees, fighting with a troop of skeletal hands pulling him under the mat of bone. He looked scared but determined, and he was glowing with light. That light stood no chance against the shadow that came from Hell's depths. It encompassed everything. Lucy held her breath and her eyes closed, foolishly, childishly, past the point of comfort. First, there came sensory-deprived screaming, and then there was _silence._

Heavy breathing next. Hands closed on her shoulders and shook her. Lucy opened her eyes. It was still black. Black. Black.

"Lucy?"

That was Loke's voice. Lucy clutched him back, scared in the dark. Who knew what lurked, waiting to grab them? (The priestess? The Queen of Bone? Handmaidens?) Lucy could practically _feel_ skeletal hands closing on her ankles. "I can't see you, Loke, the fireflies—" Had fled. "We need light, they're going to come for us, we need—"

A bulb of warm gold was birthed and the chamber was illuminated. The bones were gone, the handmaidens were gone, the shadows… the only ones that existed were those cast by stalactites and stalagmites and jagged pieces of shale, and Loke stood before her, looking tired and wary but _whole_. Lucy felt tears press into her eyes and she could not keep them back. Hormones. Fear.

"It's okay. Everything is okay."

It wasn't, she could hear it in his voice.

"We just have to get out of here. Onto the main path again, okay, Lucy?" He took her hand and laced their fingers together. He wasn't looking at her, he was watching the shadows for their saviour. Lucy let him and was grateful for his dedication, all she could see was a blurred world.


	7. Chapter 7

Natsu was tallying the thousands of eyes peering out at him from inside the pockmarked ceiling when Zeref re-entered his cave. "Remember when you never used to drop in on me?"

"No," Zeref's response was just as glib. He always showed up unapologetically unannounced. "Lucy's survived the Queen."

Natsu looked at his brother from beneath his lashes. This illusion was very, very convincing, right down to the blood on Zeref's arms, fingertip to elbow. He couldn't ever wash it clean, just like he couldn't control his urge to slice through Hell's denizens. He would never call it punishment for his lifetime of sins, but that's exactly what it was. Hell denied you what you wanted most. For Zeref, that was peace and tranquillity. For Natsu, it taunted him with the life he used to have. He wanted to feel the warm sun on his face. He wanted to feel Lucy's warm hands. He wanted his brother back. The one that would wait up with him when he was too sick to sleep. These illusions were slowly killing him.

"Did you hear me? Lucy's alive. For now."

"I guess she can wait for the next thing to eat her," Natsu said glibly. Fuck the queen and her fucking ploys. Fuck Hell and its torture.

"It won't just be her that dies. She's pregnant." His face got minutely soft.

"With a horrible little demon."

"With my nephew."

For a moment, Natsu forgot that it was all fake. "Wake up. We don't get things like that here, Zeref, we have each other and that's it." And sometimes, it felt like they didn't even have that. Natsu spent most of his days alone, except for the company of his petite demons.

"You weren't ever this cynical before."

He'd never known torment like this before, either. "Leave me. And tell the queen if she's after me then to come herself, I'm tired of these games."

Only the sound of clicking wings answered him. Zeref was already gone. Or, more likely, Natsu assumed, he'd never really been there at all.

* * *

At first, Lucy jumped every time she'd accidentally kick a loose rock and sent it soaring into one of the stone walls, afraid that she was unintentionally summoning a beast, a handmaiden, a wicked priestess with the ability to control shadow, but when nothing ever happened, she started to relax, and when she relaxed, she felt like crying. Not that she could pinpoint why. Fear. Hormones. Hunger. There were a plethora of things that brought her to tears these days.

It could have been, also, the eerie quiet that filled Hell's halls. It felt unnatural. On the other hand, what would she do if she heard the constant grumble of some unseen beast or the fluttering of elytra when her fireflies finally returned?

She missed their red glow if she was honest with herself. It reminded her of Natsu. They were absent, though, and had been since she and Loke walked into of the Maurel Grove.

Loke noticed her sniffling and slowed so he could pull a handkerchief from his suit pocket and hand it over. Lucy took it and wiped her eyes.

"Do you know how ridiculous it is that you wore a suit into Hell?"

Loke smiled. "I need to look good for the monsters, don't I? Better than my ragamuffin counterpart, anyway, that way they think I'm tasty and they're not looking at you."

Lucy smiled despite herself. It was watery. It didn't stay that way for long, drying up like a switch had been flipped. The emotional roller coasters were the worst. Usually, they could be soothed with a snack, though. She started digging through her pockets for something to eat. Loke was already on it, reaching into the spirit realm and pulling out a dinner plate full of rice and vegetables and a little slice of chicken.

"Seriously?"

"What?" Loke asked sheepishly.

"Where did that come from?"

"Virgo's kitchen," he replied with a tilt of his lips.

"Does she know it's missing?"

"I imagine it's going to be a bit of a surprise. Eat, though. I'll apologize later."

Lucy took the plate from him and ate while she walked, mowing through the vegetables first, then the rice, thinking she was saving the best for last. The chicken, however, tasted like cardboard; it was her, not Virgo's cooking. She was still tasting fear.

Suddenly, she wasn't hungry. And not just not hungry. She felt ill.

Loke took her arm. "Are you okay?"

"I feel sick," Lucy admitted.

"You ate pretty fast. Sit down for a bit."

"We're not far enough away," Lucy said bluntly. When she looked overhead, she could still see the entrance to the Maurel Grove in the spiraling rock. It was no longer black as pitch, some mushrooms had regained their bioluminescence and were glowing a light and eerie blue.

"I'd never let anything happen," Loke said vehemently.

There was a moment back there where he'd been almost as helpless as she was, if not more so.

Loke read her mind. "Really, Lucy. I'll be more careful."

A hot wave overcame her; she had to swallow to keep her food down. "Okay. Let's just sit for a bit."

Loke chose a spot mostly off the beaten path, a little nook where an old, desiccated tree hung down over their heads, soil trapped in the woody forks of its roots. He settled down and Lucy sat beside him with a massive huff. She put her head immediately on his shoulder. He was warm and comforting in Hell's cold halls.

"Do you think I'll ever feel better?"

"Once you have the baby."

"That's like..." she did the math. "Another six months of this crap."

He rubbed her back soothingly in lieu of offering her hopeful lies. Lucy closed her eyes and tried to relax. Every time she did, though, she saw the handmaiden wearing Natsu's face and her heart would soar into her throat.

"What's wrong?" Loke asked gently.

"I keep seeing her."

"The memory will fade."

It felt more real than that. Like she was still there, just waiting for an opportunity to step out of her memory and break every law of physics Lucy knew. "I saw Natsu. She used his face to make me relax and I believed it at first, it was so real."

Loke's muscles were stiff. "They were convincing."

"But I know Natsu."

"Which is why they were able to mimic him perfectly," Loke said. "They were like vampires, reading us and feeding off our desires."

Lucy asked, "Who did you see?"

"Chanel Kanlen," Loke said dreamily.

"The Sorcerer Weekly model?" Lucy scrunched up her nose.

"She's beautiful."

"You don't know her; why would they choose a model?"

"Says you," Loke said glibly. "We've spent a lot of time together, me and her centerfold."

"I know you're lying," Lucy said drolly.

He made a face.

"It was Erza, wasn't it? No, wait. Mirajane? Or maybe Virgo?" Lucy thought she was getting somewhere because he looked kind of stricken at the last but he seemed so uncomfortable, it seemed cruel to continue. She rested her head against his shoulder again. "I'll stop."

"That'd be better for my reputation."

Lucy closed her eyes and smiled. "Tom Cat Loke can't pine after a girl?"

"Not one more than any of the others. My other side pieces wouldn't be happy."

"Love isn't so bad. You should try it one day."

Loke replied but Lucy missed it, she was falling into her favourite brimstone garden.

Natsu sat in the centre of his cave, his legs crossed, with fireflies zipping around him in a flurry. He got more and more irritated the longer the seconds went on. "Enough!" he barked and the fireflies dropped to the ground. With their flames extinguished, Lucy was finally able to see the little demons clearly. They were almost like pixies with fingers and snubbed noses and scaly skin like Natsu's. They were on their knees with their hands flat on the ground above their heads, like they were praying.

"Leave," Natsu commanded and one by one, they lifted into the sky and fluttered first toward the cave's ceiling, and then disappeared into crevasses that Lucy couldn't see.

Lucy didn't imagine that Natsu was unaware of her presence, but he refused to look in her direction or acknowledge her in any way.

"Hi."

He didn't answer so she stepped directly in his field of view, so close that he had to pay attention. "I'm glad to see you."

Natsu stood and turned from her. "I already said I don't have the patience for these games today."

"I'm not here to play games." Lucy reached for him. He didn't reach back. She had always let his anger burn out when he was alive; today, she wanted something more from it and put herself between him and the wall he was diligently facing. Irritation flitted across his face, more anger, frustration and longing.

"What?"

Lucy answered by kissing him. His lips were dry and almost unresponsive. He couldn't seem to withhold himself entirely, though, touching her wrists just gently and Lucy was encouraged. This was her Natsu. It wasn't an imposter. "I shouldn't have gone into the Maurel Grove. You were right. It wasn't a nice place."

Natsu's fingers turned like vices on her wrists. She didn't think he was aware of the change. She didn't tell him he was hurting her because this was the most alive she'd felt in months.

"There were handmaidens. They tried to trick me, Natsu. There was this throne and all these bones and these two beautiful creatures. One of them pretended to be you. They wanted the baby. They wanted me and Loke. I thought they were going to get us, too."

"And then you miraculously got free."

"Someone helped me."

"Right. Someone. But you don't know who and you don't know why."

If things were different, if this was three months ago, Lucy would be hurt by his dismissive tone. She'd want to prove herself to him. Present-day Lucy didn't care. She'd done away with that part of her pride when she discovered that she needed to do whatever it took to get into Hell. "You're right. Someone did save me, and I don't know who it was."

Natsu sighed and leaned back against the wall. He looked to the ceiling; Lucy could see the whites in his eyes were bright, and the scales around his cheeks were dark. "Sure."

"Why are you being like this?"

"Because nothing is real," Natsu hissed finally. "Nothing in this fucking place is real, except this," he tapped the brimstone wall behind his head, "And this," he patted his chest.

"And this." Lucy kissed him.

"I want it to be, Lucy, but you're a ghost."

She wanted to prove him wrong. She kissed him more forcefully. He was resistant, his mouth still and his hands now at her side. Lucy told him, "I love you," and pressed the words into his mouth with her tongue. "This is real."

"No."

"I feel it."

"No."

She stubbornly said, "Tell me you love me."

His eyes closed.

"Tell me, Natsu."

Natsu's breath puffed. "Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, I love you."

"Then make love to me."

The corners of his eyes pinched. He looked older now, a few months in Hell had aged him some. Lucy suspected she looked a little bit different, too. She liked it, though. He was both new and familiar. She put his hands on her body and knew he thought the same, the way he couldn't help but touch her and stare.

"Do it. Just once more."

"And once more after that."

Yes.

Natsu said, "Sometimes, I think about what'll take to get you to stop tormenting me. Maybe if I found somewhere new..."

"You're not going anywhere, Natsu, not until I find you, and then we'll leave together."

He stared at her, a war waging behind his eyes. Lucy used her body to quell it by taking off her shirt and then her skirt. It was cold in here, too, Natsu's fires did nothing to curb Hell's natural chill. "Until then, make love to me."

He said the same thing he always said. "I can't keep doing this to myself."

And Lucy did what she always did, too, proved to him that he absolutely could.

She paid all of the attention to him today, taking off the rags he'd died in and touching his scarred body. She squatted to kiss his chest and his stomach where the skin was pink in and amongst the scales and scars. He tasted like ash and metal. His eyes drooped when she got a bit lower and teased him with her tongue, around the base and to the tip. He finally made a move, giving in and taking her head between his hands to hold her steady and moved his hips. He went slowly but always deep, it was his favourite way, a thing she'd learned only after he'd died.

He kept at it for so long, Lucy's legs started going numb. She withstood it, afraid to break the spell in case he took away what she wanted.

When he finally pulled her up, he was rigid and very, very swollen and looked crazed. Lucy's stomach flopped as he pushed her against the wall and hoisted her up. She used him for balance, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his middle.

He pushed against her and thrust in all the way to the base, then used his thumb to make her come. It was easy, feeling him inside, feeling the heat of his hands. She was shuddering in moments. His mouth curled just a little when she orgasmed. It was the closest to his smile that she'd seen in months. It made her feel hopeful.

Natsu started to move, rocking his hips back and forth, still going slowly but burying himself deeply. Lucy held on and kissed him, feeling his pleasure move through her every time his breath hitched or his fingers cinched on her waist.

"I love you," he panted against her lips.

Lucy couldn't help but smile. "Tell me again."

"I love you."

And so all of this was worth it.

"I wish I didn't, but I love you." His scaled fingers inched into her hair and cinched. Lucy leaned back into it, bowing her back. Natsu's breath hitched again and he swelled inside of her. Lucy held him closer for his orgasm and didn't let go for long minutes afterwards.

"I wish you wouldn't say stuff like that. It hurts."

"I wish you'd stop visiting. It hurts."

Lucy lifted her head up to argue but was distracted by the suddenly shaking ground. "What is that?"

Natsu tilted his head to the side, listening. Listening. Listening.

Another rumble followed by a low bellow.

"Natsu?"

"Something is coming."

"What?"

A spark lit up behind his eyes; it dulled again an instant later; Hell gave you no joys for very long. "Tobach," he responded.

The name made her uncomfortable. "Which is?"

"A demon."

Lucy's heart patterned against the cage of her ribs. The cave rattled around her, bits of dust and droppings falling from the ceiling. "Is it coming here?"

"Maybe."

"To attack us?"

He lifted his shoulder nonchalantly. His blasé attitude toward confrontation was one of the few ways he was still her Natsu.

The first impression Lucy had of Tobach was fire. It came from the outside in, licking up the walls and across the floor, not hot, not cold, but painful all the same when it was attracted to Natsu and brushed over Lucy's toes. It was gone in an instant, Natsu swallowing it all like a glutton. He looked hungry for more. And frightening. In the places where his scales had taken over his skin, he glowed a dull red-black and his eyes lost some of their familiar lustre. Here was End.

As much as her heart beat in fear, she wanted to touch him. She wanted to know every face Natsu wore.

Vibrations moved through her feet. Lucy looked away from him and out of the cave's entrance, spied a black, scaled hand on the outside wall dig in and hold its owner up against the almost vertical cliff. Bits of stone fell and met their end down below. The ground was closer here, she could hear the pieces hit against the bottom. She noted the detail even as more of the demon came in view, a long, curling horn first, likely part of a pair if its entire body would fit into the opening. Scales with pointed scutes came to her attention next, like each bore a javelin, and then the filthy claws that coiled smoke.

Just glimpsing part of it made her want to cry.

Lucy prepared herself for it to turn its massive head and look in on her but it continued on by with a swish of its massive, alligator-like tail. In seconds, it was gone. Moments, the rumblings of its passing got distant. "I can't believe it just walked past."

Natsu looked through her. "I think it's time to wake up."

"I can't go now. What if that demon comes back?"

He assured her, "It was looking for something else."

"Things could change. It could turn around."

"Just leave, Lucy."

"I don't want to." She never did.

Natsu turned his back on her and Lucy felt reality snag her by the throat and pull her off. "Wait, Natsu! Wait!" She reached for him but got only air, not Loke, not a handmaiden.

She was, for a millisecond, alone. And then she heard Loke's feet pounding over brimstone and found him running full-tilt towards her, away from the rocks he'd been hiding behind.

As soon as he was close enough, her fingers locked in the collar of his button-down shirt. His eyes were wide behind his glasses and Natsu's book was clutched to his chest. The only light that illuminated him was his own magic, pouring out of a levitated bulb.

"Get up."

It was like the Maurel Grove all over again. Lucy couldn't move, paralyzed by her sudden fear of the dark.

"Did you hear me? Something is coming. Get up!" He reefed on her arm and pulled her abruptly into a standing position. She reeled, off balance. Loke took her elbow and held her steady, he wasn't looking at her, though, scouring the surrounding area. "We need a way out of here. Or somewhere to hide."

Chasing his words was the grind of claws on stone. It was like the scrape of scales on bone. _Oh god. Oh god._ In her mind, she saw the mountain of bone erupting again, femurs and tibias and eyeless skulls all scuttling across the ground like ghosts possessed them.

Black spots tried to bloom in her field of vision. Lucy took in a deep breath of the stale air and smelled smoke. It wisped into her lungs, sweet and cloying, and fogged her judgement. She felt a calmness wash over her, strange and totally consuming.

" _Lucy_!" Loke looked ready to shake her. "We have to leave."

She didn't want to. She was suddenly sure that it was Tobach that was coming and he'd passed by Natsu's home. She needed it to show her through the web of Hell's halls. She needed it to tell her where to find him. She needed to see him, the demon and Natsu. "Wait."

His mouth got flat. "What the fuck do you mean, wait?"

"I saw it when I was with Natsu. It knows where to find him."

"Those are dreams, Lucy! And even if they weren't, it's a demon. It's not going to help us out of the kindness of its heart."

Because Loke didn't believe they had hearts. She knew how he felt about them, of course, but Loke was usually so careful to keep that to himself. He was rattled to spit his opinions around like that and she was annoyed. "You go, then. I'll stay and ask my questions."

The glow of flames could be seen around the mouth of the deep pit. If Lucy leaned over the edge of the path, she could see their source, the sheen of large, thick claws. She thought in the dim light that it looked vaguely humanoid, with the arms and legs of a man, the head of a beast. But huge. Much, much larger than any man. It was the size of an elephant, at least.

It lifted its hollow gaze; Lucy felt it pass over her skin and land on Loke and the book in his hand. A long, low growl reverberated the bowels of Hell. She felt no fear, though. She knew that was a bit strange but the thought was so distant, she couldn't make much sense of it. All she could do was smell the smoke and think about Natsu and reach for Tobach.

Loke grabbed her arm and wrenched her back. "Loke!" Lucy barked.

"We're leaving." He'd never been so bossy before, gathering her into his side and shuffling her forward with awkward running steps. Lucy had no choice, she had to move, and once she was going, the fog that had taken her started to dissipate and it was hard to remember why she wanted to stop.

Tobach reached their level and hoisted himself onto the narrow ledge. Bits and pieces of stone cracked and fell, and she heard his breath snorting out of his huge, humanoid nose, and she heard his claws rake stone, taking it apart like a cat shredded fabric. And then she heard nothing over the sound of her crashing heart. Loke was talking or swearing, maybe, and then he was pushing her roughly.

Lucy careened sideways and hit the wall seconds before the demon's huge nails scraped where she'd just been. Loke's magic lit up the artificial night, bright at first and then dulling as it had when he fought Brandish. It brushed against the demon's red scales and tore them open and the air became heavy with the scent of sulfur. It yelled out its pain and lunged. Loke's magic pushed it back, stronger than it'd been before and more tainted. He looked like he'd fallen from heaven, wisps of shadow through his light, his skin blotchy with runes. The power that came off of him was familiar and not, in the same way Natsu had been.

The demon's claws slashed through the stone and kept him from going over the ledge. When Loke's magic disappeared, he redoubled his efforts, dropping to all fours and running as an ape did with huge, ground-eating steps that Lucy felt vibrate in every part of her body. She couldn't run so she took out her whip. Cracking it discouraged him not at all. Her stardress didn't do the trick, either. He still came at her with blinding speed.

She gathered magic and immediately felt faint. She gritted her teeth to try to get her vision to stop blurring. It was a bad time to start feeling sick.

It didn't work. There were black spots in front of her eyes and the palms of her hands where she held all of her magic were sweaty. She felt weak. Not just weak, but useless. Totally unable to move, not to defend herself, not to run.

"Lucy!" Loke was calling her again. Her head wouldn't turn his way, her eyes were glued to the demon and his merciless approach. He seemed to move in fits and spurts, far away one moment, almost close enough to touch the next. He reached for her like he was going to pick her up and ring the life out of her.

Loke cast a spell that made the ground in front of her burst into bits of dust. The demon was too close to stop and fell just meters from her, straight through the floor and down, down the unguessable depth, screaming, screaming, and then a sharp crack and silence. Lucy closed her eyes and imagined that he'd hit an outcropping on the way down and cracked his head open like a melon. She imagined that he was bleeding out on some ledge. She imagined that they'd find his body a day from now, being eaten by the firefly demons and rotting. She imagined that they were safe, even if that didn't feel right.

Loke appeared at her side, grey and as sick looking as she was. He gripped her forearms with sweaty hands. "Are you okay?"

She was too rattled to do much but shake her head. No, she was not, thank you very much. She had to slide down the wall and rest on the floor with her legs frogged out on either side. Nothing would stop whirling, not Loke, not Hell's path, not the distant ceiling or the distant floor.

Loke got down in front of her and pushed her hair back from her forehead. His hand was much too warm. "What happened?"

"Dizzy spell," she spat out.

"You pushed yourself too hard."

She'd hardly pushed herself at all and she said so.

"It's not just you now, though," Loke chastised her. "Any strain you put on yourself, you're putting on the baby, too, and it'll let you know. We've been walking for a while, you were scared. It takes a lot out of you."

"How many times have you been pregnant?" Lucy jabbed.

He looked sheepish. "I did research."

Lucy sighed and put her head back against the wall. "Sorry."

"It's okay. You're stressed."

Sure she was. And annoyed with being pregnant. How could she love something so fiercely but be so frustrated with it? Worse yet, it'd only been three months, how would she fare when it'd been five or seven or nine?

Not for the first time she wondered if she could do this.

"You just have to take it slower. Let me do the fighting."

"You're not right."

He shook his head. "I'm fine."

"I saw your magic. I felt it. Don't tell me nothing's wrong."

He went instead with, "Don't worry about me."

"You're the only one here with me, Loke, and if you go, I'm all alone. I'm going to worry." She suddenly felt on the brink of tears. "I need to know what's happening."

He searched her eyes and sighed. "It's the book."

"Natsu's book?"

He nodded.

"What about it?"

He scrunched up his face, thinking. "The book was cursed the moment Zeref scribed End into it. It cursed him when he was alive and in possession of it and now that he's not, it's still cursed but the magic is looking for someone to attach to, I think. If that makes sense."

And Loke was holding it. Lucy wondered what that meant for her when she finally took it over, if that curse would extend into the key she was hoping to forge for Natsu or if that rotten magic ended at the edge of those pages. Was that something that she could somehow seal away and forget about? Keep Natsu's book separate from everything and maybe they'd all be okay?

It was the only plan she had.

"I'll take the book for now. We can take turns carrying it."

"Not yet."

"It's hurting you, Loke. I'm your master, I should carry the burden." Lucy didn't get the appreciation she thought she would. Instead, a strange and strangled look befell him. "What is it?"

"You're a good master, Lucy."

She would have agreed with him if they weren't both shivering on a floor in some distant layer of Hell looking like a demon had spat them up.

He told her, "I'll let you know when I need a break."

It was too much effort to argue. Besides, she heard a familiar grind of nail on stone and found she didn't have the breath. The demon was coming back.

Loke squeezed her fingers and stood. "Let me take care of it."

Lucy used the wall to help her get up. No matter what he said, she wasn't just going to sit there and wait. That's not how teams functioned.

One huge claw scraped across the walk, and then another and dug in. This close, Lucy saw that there were shredded bits of scale caught in the hollow of each claw, the remnants of its last meal. There was a smell, too, like meat that had sat out in the sun for too long. She swallowed back unwelcomed bile and took out her whip. She channeled no magic through it this time, afraid of another dizzy spell, it was just plain black leather.

The demon's horns came up, then one beady, black eye, dull as a whetstone, the other was knocked from its socket and besieged by seven badger-like demons, all hanging off the side of his cracked and bleeding head, trying to tear him apart as they ascended. They were human-sized and hissed when they saw Lucy and Loke.

All but two demons released Tobach's eye and zeroed in on Lucy's location. Loke yelled a warning and tried to help. He was cut off by Tobach and was encased in fire that sprung up from nowhere. Lucy's skin did that strange cold burning again. She missed the heat of Natsu's fires. Would he think her crazy if she asked him to put her in it when they were together again?

"Lucy!"

She blinked. She was surrounded by little badger demons, each baring their teeth and circling her. She cracked her whip and broke skin on one of the little demon's nose. Thick, black blood dripped out. It swiped its paw over its snout and when it straightened again, it looked like its teeth were longer and sharper, its eyes blacker and hollower.

And then it started to grow. And stand. Its fur rippled back and bones popped. Its spine straightened and its arms got longer.

Lucy did a sweep of her surroundings, looking for a place to back into, and noticed that its companions were all doing the same, getting larger, getting meaner, focusing solely on her, their quarrel with Tobach completely forgotten.

Lucy cracked her whip and took out one of the demons' eyes. Another crack made a tear open up in another's chest. She noticed one racing towards her almost too late. A skip back, a quick twist, and a smack with the butt end of her whip were the best she could do. It turned around and snapped at her hand. A shadow whipped by and tore its jaw out of its face and left it crumpling to the ground, dead.

Quiet overtook the havocked chamber. Lucy looked left. The demons that had been approaching her from that side were slowly slumping down to their haunches, getting small like they were afraid. To her right, Tobach paused with Loke firmly in his grip and lifted his carriage-sized head, twisting it left and right like he was listening.

One of the demons to Lucy's right, the one whose middle she'd opened, danced wildly to get out of the way of something creeping along the floor that Lucy could just barely see for the lack of light and its stealth, it was a creeping sickness, a blight, that rotted the ground and any demon it touched.

One by one, the badger-things fell, and when they fell, they fell through the floor, too, like they were being swallowed.

Tobach screamed a scream that Lucy thought she'd remember for the rest of her life. She turned and saw that the shadows had turned real, a huge mouth with sharp, black teeth that latched onto Tobach's head and snapped through his thick neck like it was a twig.

The demon released Loke and staggered. He looked absurd, headless and confused, and then he fell, his arms absent of pin-wheeling, his legs still ramrod straight.

Loke hit the ground; the shadows latched onto his feet. Lucy felt panic well in her chest. "No!" Before she finished speaking, though, they pulled away from him sharply. Lucy ran for him, dropping to his side and gathering him in, checking for damage. "Where does it hurt?"

"It doesn't."

"Tell me."

"really. I'm fine." His skin was so cold and his magically generated light was sputtering, but other than that, Lucy found she believed him.

"Don't let the light go out, Loke." _I don't want to be in the dark. I don't._ Handmaidens were in the dark. Priestesses. Demons.

He gritted his teeth. Lucy pushed more magic through his celestial door and the light got brighter, throwing everything into relief. It was in that soft yellow glow that she caught a glimpse of their saviour's back as he retreated. He wore no shoes, his clothes were ripped, and he was more tall than broad. She saw nothing else. She blinked and he was as smoke in a gale. Gone.


	8. Chapter 8

It took only two minutes by Lucy's count for Hell's silence to break, and once it had, she wished to god that it hadn't. Things yipped and grumbled, their voices spiraled up and up from the hole Tobach fell down and she could only imagine what they were so excited about. She could smell the blood, the kind of blood that came from deep in the body, organ blood, and then she could smell raw meat and—and sewage, almost. Digested food that hadn't quite made its way through the body.

She staggered away from Loke so she could vomit but the feeling passed in a wash of cold sweat and shakes. Lucy waited until she was _sure._ Her nausea never really passed but it never got any worse. Being pregnant was hard. When she was ready to come back to him, Loke's face was wan and he held out a cup of water for her. It was icy cold and shocked her stomach into behaving.

"We need to get out of here." So far away. "Can you travel?" Loke asked.

Her legs were quivering but beneath that, she felt adrenalized. "Yes."

Loke took her hand and started leading the way. Lucy could feel him draining magic out of her, a subtle syphon that she suspected would get worse the longer they stayed in Hell with Natsu's book but if it meant his light stayed lit than she'd run herself near-dry.

"We'll find a place to hide until those things shut up," Loke said.

There weren't many places. Where there wasn't smooth rock, there were shallow holes in the walls and anywhere they were deeper, Lucy was afraid. They reminded her of the Maurel Grove, and that reminded her of the handmaidens, which reminded her that there was something worse here than the handmaidens. There was the Queen of Bone. And didn't that hole there look like someplace a Queen of Bone would wait?

Loke noticed her lagging steps and pulled her along with more force, no longer patient. "This way." It was either keep up or get dragged. Lucy lengthened her steps.

They made one entire loop of their downward spiral before ducking between two huge leaning slabs of stone that were near-invisible from their previous vantage point. Loke's light illuminated the narrow walls and the short ceiling of the shallow cave and Lucy could see that there wasn't much to it, no place for a demon queen to hide. It was a cubby hole at most, but it was also perfect. It was off the main path and the granite walls subdued the chaotic yelling to a manageable level.

Loke pulled Lucy into a sitting position. She fretted at her cuffs, pulling a loose thread free. Loke noticed her fidgeting and gripped her hand. "We're safe here."

For now. When thoughts of _later_ bombarded her, Lucy had to think about something else entirely. "Who do you think it was?"

"Hm?"

"The one that saved us." Like he didn't know who she was talking about.

"No one I want to cross again," Loke said.

"He didn't attack you."

"He almost did."

"I don't think he would have hurt you." Loke didn't look so sure but Lucy finished, "We should find him again and demand answers."

He turned his head and though he didn't say anything, Lucy read his words in his expression. Was that really something she was willing to bargain with? She was horrified by how long she really had to think about that. On one hand, she could potentially be stuck alone in Hell. On the other hand, it would be a temporary thing. Loke would come back from the spirit realm, wouldn't he? He always did. Here, her magic felt strange, though, and his was on the fritz, too, with Natsu's book in his possession, so who was to say?

"Maybe we can wait," Lucy amended. "If we see him again, we'll ask."

Loke looked like he took very little reprieve from that but that was the best Lucy could offer. If she had an opportunity to get answers, she had to take it.

"Rest, Lucy. We'll move again as soon as Hell quiets."

* * *

Lucy had been sleeping a lot, but despite that, she closed her eyes and slept again. Loke listened to her breathe for ten minutes; it was as rhythmic as the yips coming from the spiral, where Tobach had fallen. When he was sure she was well and truly out, he clutched Natsu's book and inched away from her. Her head rolled on her shoulders and her eyes squeezed tighter together. He had to be extra cautious when she was like this—when she'd already spent her time with Natsu and he would not see her again, this was when she slept lightest.

He needn't worry, extracting himself from her and bending out of the cave went smoothly. He straightened his back and narrowed in on the spot above where Tobach had climbed from the depths. Stone was scarred and scorched, and there was a split in the ground, where a small tributary of water as dark as the night sky poured like honey from a broken beehive, laboriously slow and steady. It ran through the rocks and pooled in shadowed places all throughout the spiral. Loke went to a spot on this level where it collected in a shallow puddle, fed by a tiny stream before it dipped into the rock again.

There was a smell associated with the liquid, as sweet as the honey it mocked. Loke knew it would taste twice as bitter and stain his lips black if he dared drink from the River of Forgetting, where the ancient Gleaner awaited his return. It didn't stop him from wanting to. Everyone that ever looked into the shadows and laid eyes on it wanted to.

The Gleaner was a queen in her own right, but no one called her such. She was shunned, and for good reason. She was a villain and a thief. She held the memory of all those that passed and wished to bargain, though, and had the power to grant any one wish to a weary traveller. For a price.

Everyone wanted something.

Loke looked back in Lucy's direction. Hell was still alive with howls but they were below them, and he thought he'd know if the Queen of Bone came. He'd feel her. Thinking it was as safe as Hell could ever possibly be, he stepped back around the bundle of stone that hid the pool.

The Gleaner rose from its depths, a slow and horrible awakening. He'd seen it happen only once before, her birthed from Hell's bowels, but he never wanted to see it again. Her eyes were the worst part, the colour of unripe persimmon. They narrowed in on Loke and he thought he was foolish for listening to her call before Tobach attacked, and he was foolish for coming back. Sweet kisses and amoral love and he could be persuaded to wander, but he knew better than to be lured off by promises.

The Gleaner's mouth came over the water, pale and fat, like maggots and looking as cold and wriggly as them, too, against her faded, maroon skin. Her body looked like meat left out on the counter to moulder, slimy. "You dither, uncertain." Her voice bubbled and popped like fetid bog water. "Ask your questions and maybe your discomfort will pass."

Loke's hands were sweaty. He rubbed them on his pants. "I need you to show us the way. To Natsu. To a demon. End. Have you heard of him?"

"Everyone in Hell has heard of the prince."

"You must show me how to find him."

Her hands skimmed the water, fingers long and white, her nails an off-purple. "For a price."

For Lucy, he'd do almost anything. "What do you want?"

"The prince's happiest memory."

"What?"

"End. End's happiest memory." She clutched her fingers over her chest like she had a heart to hold. "I wish to keep it."

Loke furrowed his brow and informed her, "That isn't mine to give."

"You hold the book of his life," she contradicted. "Everything that is End is contained in those words. You know this."

_Memories, too_? Of course, Zeref would have been thorough, binding his brother up, this perfect replica, in pulpy pages. He had a lifetime to make this book as complete as possible. He would have put all of Natsu's strife and happiness and anger and love inside.

"You should be thankful I ask only for a memory," the Gleaner said like she read his mind. "Just a fraction of his life. A hint of who he was in the before. A moment. Just a small, infinitesimal thing."

Loke imagined himself a thief, giving to Hell's memory thief that which was not his to give.

"It'll be painless. He won't know it's gone."

"He will when he wakes and he's missing something," Loke said.

"It would be like it was never there at all, so how would he know?" she wondered.

He just would. Loke thought _he_ would if their positions were reversed and Natsu was gifted with this kind of power over him.

"Think about it, Leo the Lion," the Gleaner said. "Think about it as you journey, and maybe when it's time to rest your weary head you'll feel differently." She started to sink into the black and gold water. Loke watched her until her silver spun hair floated for a moment on the surface, and then was subsumed, like a thousand needles in tar.

Abruptly, Loke realized that the howls stopped. He did a turn, magical light bobbing high above his head, and looked down the spiral as far as he could. The light made a crooked frown on Hell's stone but it would do nothing to touch the shadow. Those shadows had eyes. And at the edge of the shadows, he saw a hand; it reached up the wall, a temptation, a promise, with its peach skin and healthy fingernails, a promise of pleasure, a promise of pain. It had a voice, to whisper his name.

' _Loke_ ,' like a rustle of unseen feet moving over dead grass in the hours past midnight. ' _Loke,_ ' like the lap of dark water laden with graves, _'Loke_ ,' a siren's call, rotting his eardrums and boiling his insides. _'Loke_.'

A secret. A horrible little secret.

"It'd be better to die," he told the darkness.

It laughed at him. The hand disappeared and the eyes closed and he was alone once more. He returned for Lucy.

* * *

Loke's skin was the colour of fresh bone, not white, but an off-yellow. Lucy avowed to keep her eye on it but her eyes kept wandering, as did her mind. The fireflies had come back, just one a few hours before, it followed them down, _down_ , down, and then more, gradually slipping from crevasses and cracks, throwing the world into a red glow that she found comforting.

"Where do you suppose they live?"

"What?" Loke asked distractedly. He'd been far away ever since she woke from her nap, his eyes shifting to shadows and his muscles twitching at every sound. If she didn't know any better, she'd say he was afraid.

"The fireflies. The sprites. The fairies." One combination was right.

"In dank holes," Loke muttered.

"I think they'd be warm. And bright." Like Natsu. And unlike Hell.

"Sure."

Lucy purposefully ignored the dismissiveness of his answer. She didn't need him dragging her down when she was struggling to stay buoyant.

They completed three more turns of the spiral in silence, Loke was contemplative and Lucy daydreamed of the last time she saw Natsu. His hands twisting in her hair, her mouth wrapped around him, even the cramping of her legs was a pleasant memory that sent little pulses of eagerness through her body to low in her belly. She wrapped her arms around herself and wondered if she'd ever be satisfied or if she'd be greedy forever, always wanting from him.

Loke pulled up in front of her so short, Lucy rammed into his back. They both jostled forward. Loke's toe curled over an open ledge and he stumbled back into her so he didn't go over. Lucy protested; Loke turned around and slapped a hand over her mouth. His eyes were wide and wild and his magic light was rapidly shrinking. Lucy eyed it with panic but when it went out, there was the light of the fireflies to go off of. Their red glow made the sounds coming to her ears grosser.

Tearing. Wet tearing and gnawing. . . Gulping wetly. A cold updraft wafted by and brought with it a scent Lucy had never identified before—bone. Bone did have a very unique way to it. Powdered chalk, maybe. Roasted iron? Whatever it was, it reminded her of the bones she'd use to make stock, _before_ it went into the pot and cooked because Hell was not hot.

Though she was afraid, Lucy leaned a little bit to the right to see around Loke's body and identified the source of the stench. There was Tobach, crumpled like roadkill left in the sun for six weeks. His body was stripped bare of all of its flesh and tendons and organs and now all that remained were bones, but even those were getting snatched up and ferried away by imp-like creatures.

Small, they were no taller than a foot and hairless. They walked like great apes did, on their knuckles, and used needle-like teeth to not just strip flesh off bones, but to crack into the bone itself and suck out the marrow. She saw one of the creatures do it right there, opening its huge jaws and using incredible bite force to maw through the tree trunk-sized limb.

Lucy felt suddenly woozy. She stepped back, clumsy, a low and terrified moan trying to work its way up out of her chest. Loke turned and grabbed her by the elbow; his other hand again curled over her mouth to keep her quiet. She barely saw him, eyes focused on the quiet mayhem one level below.

"Lucy." Loke's voice was quieter than a whisper. The imps kept tearing into their feast and chewing happily. "Lucy, look at me. _Look at me._ " _Look at me._ She did only because he put himself directly between her and the imps. "There's a low ledge over on the other side we can drop from so we don't have to walk through them but to get to it, we need to cross and we need to do it quietly."

It took her longer than it normally would have, but Lucy saw what he meant, on the other side of the spiral was a notch in the rock that would let them scurry down and circumvent the hive. They just had to cross the hole in the stairs Tobach made when he fell, headless, from on high. They had a narrow ledge of crumbling stone to work with, barely two inches wide. Below it, the imps, waiting to devour them if they made one wrong move.

_Oh._ Her palms sweated just thinking about putting herself against the roughhewn stone wall and sidling along. But that was the way to Natsu. So she'd do it. Besides, if Loke was okay with it, it must have been fine. He'd been a hen this entire time, unwilling to take unnecessary risks. He looked grimly determined now; Lucy couldn't tell if that's what he looked like when fear barbed his heart. And she didn't know if she cared. If he'd suddenly found the desire to trek deeper into Hell without her prodding, she was grateful. That meant she didn't have to carry the cavalier burden all on her own.

She took in a deep breath of rotten air and squared her shoulders. Loke nodded instead of chancing speaking again and took her hand. His palm was sweaty, too, and cold. He put his back against the bumpy wall and Lucy mimicked him.

The ledge they teetered on was wide enough for Lucy's heel, and the gap they traversed four feet across. It wasn't that far, but Lucy felt front heavy, the baby weighing her down, her breasts, everything she kept on her person, in any pocket even remotely at the front of her body. She hated her body for the first time since Natsu started loving it, and wished she was lithe and light and paper-thin and just everything she wasn't and had never _really_ been.

She tried closing her eyes and going along but quickly discovered that was _terrifying_. She couldn't see the imps and she couldn't see any gaps in the ledge, of which there was more than a few. They were never any more than a few centimeters wide, but it felt like a canyon when she had to figure out where to put her feet.

"Slow and steady," Loke breathed.

_Slow and steady._

She stepped.

_Slow and steady._

She stepped again.

_Slow. Slow. Slow._

_Steady._

Step.

Loke was on solid ground for a full five seconds before Lucy noticed. His hold on her fingers wrenched tight and he started to pull her over. It was a good thing he was there, her legs felt like jelly just as soon as she let herself realize it. She collapsed into him and pressed her cheek into his shoulder. He smelled like sweat and magic, irrationally comforting. He held her back; his eyes were focused over her shoulder. She didn't want to look; she could still hear the gnawing and wet chewing and the breaking.

She tried to imagine that it was something else so hard that she allowed herself the concession she'd denied herself earlier. She closed her eyes, and so they were closed when she first noticed the chortle of an eerie song followed by the red pulsing light of the fireflies brightening. They were like candlelight at first, but their light was quickly turning into that of a bonfire. It hit Lucy's boots and then her legs, and then within seconds, totally engulfed her. She was ablaze without burning, lit up like a firework, totally exposed.

Loke backpedaled, tugging Lucy with him. There was no shelter from the searing light; Lucy felt hot for the first time in days and started sweating. The imps didn't seem bothered by it, they tilted their face to the fire and held out their stomachs, like turtles sunning on logs when they needed to digest a particularly large meal. It was them making the singing noise, Lucy noticed their flabby, white and bloodstained throats vibrating, and the singing was making the fireflies' fire throb fast and then slow like an erratic heartbeat.

Loke took another step back and Lucy went with him, and together, they felt the backs of their legs brush by something cold and moist. Lucy turned first, unable to help herself. In the red and orange light, she made out the shapes of smaller imps set into a nest in the wall, hollows dug for their tinier selves. They were more exposed now then she suspected they had been before Tobach fell, for when he tumbled down and destroyed part of the wall, he destroyed part of their nursery, too, leaving a gaping hole in the wall.

The young imps looked at her with wet jet stone eyes. Lucy watched one suck in breath, its waddle neck vibrating. She braced herself for its high-pitched keen, but she wasn't prepared for it. It pierced the air and one by one the adults stopped humming. Lucy _heard_ their necks crane and felt their eyes on her skin. A chill took her head to toe. _Panic_. The taste of panic filled her mouth. Tangy iron. Fear.

One of the adult imps whiffed in their direction. Loke gripped Lucy's fingers so tightly, she felt them creaking. She could feel the nervous energy fill her spirit's body. When his physical form wasn't enough to contain it all, it spilled through their connection and into her and suddenly, she was too full to move. Though she _needed_ to. She needed to _get out of there._ She needed to run.

The whiffing imp was the first to cluck, and once it clucked, the others whiffed, too. Loke could move and did so, taking Lucy with him. The direction they moved, though, was a bad one, bringing them closer to the nest. Another baby cried and in response, the parents yipped. They sounded like a pack of hyenas, foreboding and eerie and vicious.

Lucy realized she wasn't too scared to run when the first adult moved and others followed it. She spun on her heel and started down the stairs in huge, dangerous running leaps. Loke was right behind her, and right behind him was the imps.

They were fast despite their diminutive size, like foxes on the hunt. Lucy didn't want to be a rabbit. She didn't want to be a rabbit. She didn't want to be a rabbit.

Loke's magic came out, just as tainted as it was when he fought Brandish, black and gold and hot. It burned some to a crisp and scared some back a few feet so they weren't chomping right at their heels. The smell of burning flesh accompanied screams into the air. Lucy wasn't sure if she should be more afraid of the screaming, drawing attention from far and wide, or the imps ready to tear them apart. Would they summon something larger? Fiercer? Or would the imps catch up and pick them apart?

Loke's tainted light ballooned again and Lucy could see intermittently in front of her. There was another gap in the staircase, this one smaller. "Jump!" Loke leaped beside her and they landed badly, pressed against the curving wall. Lucy's ankle screamed at her. She didn't twist it completely but it was close, reminding her that they were racing in near-dark, down a spiraling stone staircase in a strange place. But there were little flesh-eating demons on their heels so she would _keep_ running until they were not any longer.

Loke's light burned through another wave of demons but in that glow, Lucy noticed something even worse. The imps had split into two groups, those that chased behind them and those that were dropping from the level above to get in front of them. They were so desperate, a few fell off the path and into the bottomless spiral. There came the sound of wings cutting through the air and then their screams abruptly cut off. There was something _else_ down that pit, picking off anything that slipped off.

Lucy didn't have much time to worry about that, though. Any imp that made it to the level below had their sights set on Lucy. They were trapped, they couldn't go forward and they couldn't go backwards, the other imps were leaping over the narrow gap with moderate success, some falling to their deaths but some managing to scrabble across. Loke held them back with his magic; he needed to keep his focus on them, though, because more seemed to come out of the woodwork, swarming like red ants.

Lucy took out her whip and used it to grab an adventurous imp. She flung it with great apathy over the ledge. Down if felt, screaming until it met the other predator, and then it was silent. The other imps looked at her, pupilless eyes glowing in Loke's blackened light. She attacked before they could, grabbing another's leg in her whip and slinging it over the ledge. And another. The third one fell just right, though, and was able to grab onto the ledge. Its needle claws found purchase where there was none and it scrambled back up, closer than ever. Lucy had to lean over the ledge and kick it. She lost her balance. Loke was there to grab her by the scruff of the neck and yank her back in.

She couldn't be fazed by her near-demise, there were more imps to take care of. She started grabbing them from the higher level and proactively threw them. She worked as fast as she could; her arm was going numb. Loke was pushing her from behind. Though he was burning through the imps, more were coming and they were as fearless as a rabid pack of dogs.

"Keep moving!"

Lucy waffled. The above ledge _looked_ sort of clear, though, so maybe they could make it under. She took Loke's hand again. His skin was _hot_ where his magic had touched.

They started running again with abandon, Lucy with her whip trailing over the rocks behind her and Loke lighting up the dark. They were in the same predicament in just a few steps. They were under the small gap they'd jumped over and more imps were raining from the sky.

"Fuck," Loke swore and shook off Lucy's grip. She felt a sudden and massive drain on her magic as Loke took from her. She felt faint and swayed. Loke had to forget his spell and grab her again to keep her from falling. An imp took that moment of reprieve and jumped. It grabbed Loke's shoulder and tore through his suit into his skin. Lucy smelled blood. The imp reared back its head to take a nasty bite out of him. Lucy used the butt of her whip and jammed it into its eye. It screamed and let go and fell to its death.

Another was over the ledge, feet swinging out into thin air as it judged its jump onto Loke's back. Lucy swung her whip up and threw it over the ledge. It hit the other side of the spiral before it went crashing down into the maws of whatever waited below.

Fireflies zipped past Lucy's field of view and started disappearing into a tunnel that she would have otherwise missed. It was wide enough for her and Loke. It was crazy, she didn't know _where_ it ended up or what dug it out in the first place, but she was desperate. She grabbed Loke by the bicep and lunged forward. He saw her intentions and hesitated. Another imp fell on him, fingers digging for his eyes this time. Loke grabbed it by its head and flung it far. Rivulets of blood made war paint on his cheeks. After that, he lunged for the tunnel, grabbing Lucy up like she was a doll and throwing her into the smooth, cold stone. They slid down faster than either of them could ever run. Lucy's ears popped and her body bumped over worn rock.

Lucy tilted her face back; in the fading firefly glow, she saw the imps gather at the mouth of the tunnel but they did not pursue.


	9. Chapter 9

A hunk of bone fell from the sky and crashed to the ground outside of Natsu's cave. Natsu stared at it while his nose whiffed almost involuntarily. It smelled like imps and like Zeref. It smelled like Tobach. And...

He stood. The ground beneath his feet rumbled and Natsu had to promptly sit back down again. The stone in the center of his cave burgeoned to the point of comedy and then exploded, large chunks of brimstone hitting the ceiling and the surrounding walls. A wave of yellow and white bone spilled from the gouge in the earth. He watched it with an iron-hard jaw and tense muscles.

The bones scattered every which way and kept going and going like someone had taken a soda and shook it roughly before taking the cap off. Natsu wondered if they'd fill his cave entirely. Some hit his feet and he commanded himself not to step backwards. Any movement at all would be a show of weakness for the Queen of Bone.

The smell was so overwhelming he was dizzy. Dry rot and sweet decay. Wave after wave of it. He clenched his fists and arrested his breaths in a small attempt to manage it.

It still snuck down his throat somehow.

Finally, the clatter of bone began to quieten and the pile, four inches over Natsu's toes, stopped growing. Just the top was pushing upwards now, like the world's most grotesque mole was burrowing her way out.

Bones burst into the air and the Queen of Bone came free, hands first, nails pink and healthy, then her arms. The crown of her head came up next. Wheat-yellow hair glistened in red firefly light and Natsu felt dread. He didn't want to see her pretend to be Lucy. He didn't. And he did. And that terrified him.

Despite his rules, Natsu stood and took a step back. Maybe distance would help him think more rationally.

When the Queen's face emerged, her skin was healthy and bright. Her eyes showed themselves to be a warm brown. It was the right shade, and they even danced in the right way.

Natsu desperately searched for ways that they were different.

He got his wish a moment later when that Lucy fraud stood nude from her bone pile and walked gracefully over the shifting ground to his side. There was a gaping hole in her chest where her heart was and no matter what the queen did, she couldn't fill it completely for more than a moment. The flesh would rot and curl away again, black, as surely as a harvest would die. It was horrific. He kept staring at the naked flesh. It made him feel sick. Good. That was good. If he was feeling sick, he wasn't longing.

"It's been a long time, Natsu. Don't you have a kiss for you long lost lover?" She leaned in, the replica of Lucy's mouth pursed. Natsu staggered back and the queen laughed with Lucy's voice. Mean, though. She sounded like the monster she was.

Natsu found his tongue. "What are you doing here?"

"I heard you say if I should like to torment you, to come and do it myself. I couldn't resist the invitation."

Angry, he curled his hands into fists tight enough that they ached. _I knew it_. They didn't get second chances in Hell. They got blood and sadness and frustration. "Why do you play these games?"

"Because you'll play with me. Because when you wake your body is excited and your mind is revolted. Because your base and easily manipulated. Especially when your murderous brother isn't around to slap my wrists and tell me no."

Natsu looked around, looking for Zeref without meaning to.

The Queen laughed. "If I told you he was protecting her? Would you believe me? Would you think that sweet?"

Natsu scolded himself for giving her even that small win. "Enough with the games. Either kill me or leave me be."

The Queen only smiled. "She'll think you're a prince, you know? That's what the Gleaner told her lion and that's what he'll tell her. Little princeling End. As if your brother is king. Soon she'll know you're a prince of nothing."

"Enough is enough!" Fire whipped around him, scorching everything it touched. The fireflies zipped through it and drank it down, greedy. When they were through, they pulled at the Queen of Bone's hair and burned it from her head to make her look less like Lucy. They grabbed her cheeks and made them bubble and scab. They tore her flesh. Natsu watched it all, he made himself. Her skin melted and bone and coldness took its place. It was gruesome and terrible and by the end of it, he knew it wasn't at all what he thought he needed. He felt like screaming.

Uninjured, the Queen brushed the fireflies away. Some died right there, turning to bone and joining her pile, while others suffered much worse deaths, slow and painful as half of their skin rotted and the bones fell away. Torsos were exposed, femurs and ulnas. She was remorseless. She took a shiny piece of mirror from her pocket and handed it over.

"What is that?" Natsu tried not to listen to the dying fireflies.

"Think of who you want to see and you'll glimpse them," she told him.

Though he knew it was just another way of tormenting him, he took the mirror and thought of Lucy.

Its surface fogged, and then Natsu saw her face, plain as if she were in front of him. Her hair was whipped back over her shoulder and she clung to Loke's shoulder hard. They were moving quickly. Sliding. Coming down a tunnel Natsu recognized too well. His first few days in Hell, he, too, had stumbled upon those underground mazes.

"A gift befitting his highness," the Queen mocked. "May he watch until she's been snatched and her bones are cleaned. May he look on with horror, unable to turn away when her baby is taken from her womb, kept alive but gnawed on whenever I see fit.

"May he then suffer, wizened to his ignorance, so when I come to collect what is mine, your bones will be drenched in your misery." She was losing the remainder of Lucy's façade at an alarming rate. Her hair withered and turned from wheat gold to the grey-brown of rotting water lily leaves, her eyes got rheumy and white as the dead's did, though they never turned unseeing, she watched him, judging his reaction when her mouth got limp and sagged and her skin drooped, then sloughed off to reveal white-yellow bone beneath.

Not all of her teeth were left, some had fallen out centuries ago, molars and incisors. She never bothered to replace them, though she must have an army of them laying about. Natsu looked away from them.

"Well, Prince of Nothing, have you nothing to say?" she jeered.

Natsu kept his face stoic. Any sign of emotion was a sign of weakness.

It was an effort in vain. She knew anyway, she always did. She grinned as much as a woman with only a quarter of the skin on her face could and returned to the top of her bone mountain. "Great Prince." Her bow was mocking, too. Natsu didn't care. He watched until she had sunk into her bone pile completely, and then that pile retreated. Even Tobach's bone was gone when she was through; she always took her dues.

There was something happening on the mirror but Natsu didn't want to see. He dropped it and it broke into hunks of sharp glass. He turned away from them and summoned the injured fireflies to his side. There were three in total. He held them in his hands and called the most violent fire he could. They burned to ash in a blink, out of their misery.

* * *

Lucy's ears popped twice more before the tunnel started leveling out and she sensed an end to their fall. Holes opened in the ceiling where she could see upwards in short bursts. She was going too fast to make much sense of her surroundings. She changed her perspective and looked down and had her suspicions confirmed, she could see the end, a hole in the smooth tunnel, at the bottom of which was some kind of greasy grey stone. And it was fast approaching. If they hit at this speed, they could easily injure themselves. Or the baby. She didn't even want to _think_ about that.

She tried to slow herself down and earned blisters on the tips of her fingers for her efforts.

Loke seemed to realize the same thing she did and sacrificed the skin on his hands and the leather on his boots so she didn't have to. "Hold onto me," he commanded, pushing against the tunnel with all of his strength. Lucy clutched his shoulder for dear life. He didn't gasp or yell when his skin started to peel but Lucy imagined that it was painful.

Despite his best efforts, they were still going too fast when the tunnel spat them out. Lucy closed her eyes turned her shoulder, so she fell on her side, and Loke curled around her so she fell on him and not on the ground. When they hit, they bounced, and though she prepared herself, she never felt any pain. At least, not the kind that was associated with falling on stone at thirty kilometers an hour. She sunk into something spongy and bounced back out again. That was fine, but then in place of that blunt-force pain, her skin stung. Like bees were poking her.

Lucy opened her eyes and tried to understand what was happening. Loke was finally yelling and pushing her up. She scrabbled to her feet. The ground was soft and her steps were messy and truncated. She'd go forward only to have the ground buckle under her and she'd have to go back, but backwards wasn't any better. She stepped onto a soft spot and fell. Her legs blazed. She yelled and hopped back to her feet. Loke was waiting. He took her hand and pulled her forward so fast, she couldn't keep up. She fell again; tears sprung to her eyes. Loke lifted her and carted her to his destination. Solid ground.

Lucy got her feet under her just as soon as she could and looked down. She had golden burs jammed into her skin. She picked one out and it was like pulling away a needle. Blood welled up and dried almost immediately. She felt better afterwards, but the bur wriggled in her hand. She screamed and dropped it. It hit the ground and cracked open and a maggot-like creature the size of a June bug larva and the colour of a rotting banana squirmed out. It wriggled away from her and towards the thing they'd landed on. Lucy could see now that it was the body of a great worm-like thing.

All at once, her skin crawled. She started batting off the burs madly. Her lungs were locked in a vice and all she could do was suck in short, hectic breaths. She stomped on one of the larvae. It popped like a snail underfoot, brown goo shooting out. Lucy did it again, though it made her squeamish.

They were all over her legs and her arms and her sides, in her hair and on her neck. Each time one fell, it burst open like it'd needed blood to germinate and crawl out, a legless horror for her to crush.

She was lifting her foot for what must have been the thirtieth casualty when a wet sliding noise came to her ears accompanied by a low growl.

"Lucy," Loke stopped batting off his own burs so he could warn. She looked up. And up. And realized that the thing that she thought was dead was nothing of the sort.

It was a worm in every sense of the word, complete with thick body segments and bristly chaetae. The only difference Lucy could spot was at the tips of its chaetae, it had thousands more of those bur-type things, and its eyes, which were large and black and intelligent by the flickering light Loke had summoned.

Lucy stepped back and it looked down under her feet, where she'd killed many of its young. Its gash of a mouth opened and she saw jagged sharp teeth. Its body coiled as if getting ready to strike. Loke took Lucy's hand and together they started to run.

The ground rumbled when the worm slithered after them too fast. It hit rocks and those rocks burst apart as if they were porcelain and not granite. Its body scored the ground.

Lucy's legs were still rubbery from her last run through Hell. She couldn't keep this pace up for very long at all.

"Just a little further," Loke said like he'd read her mind. "We're almost there."

She searched for the relief he'd spotted. There was the black shine of water ahead and in that water was a boat. A large River Queen style without any apparent oars. It had a wooden plank down on the stone as if it waited for passengers.

The worm snapped at her feet and Lucy lengthened her steps, uncaring whose boat that was or what she was going to do once she was on it. It looked like it could be salvation and so it was.

Loke pushed her onto the plank first. Her feet smacked the boards and the wood bowed under her. The worm screamed again and lunged for Lucy. She fell forward to avoid being its meal and landed on the deck on hands and knees. Loke came with her. The worm hit the side of the boat and the entire thing listed dangerously, water slapping at its sides and even coming in.

The worm reared up to attack again but the plank fell away into the water and the boat shot forward, out of range. The worm raged and Lucy watched it consider giving chase. It would not enter the water, though.

She kept her eye on it until the boat dipped around a stalagmite and she could see no more, then she deigned to survey her surroundings.

Silver lights hung off ornate bannisters to keep Hell's dark and cold at bay. The wooden deck beneath her back was worn by millions of shoes, and at the centre of the boat was a steering wheel that turned without the prompting of any being.

Scared, Lucy pushed herself to her feet and did a little spin to get a better idea of what she was dealing with. She stopped halfway, attention snagged by a wall of windows behind the steering wheel. When she peeked through, there were two tables set up, upon which was plate after plate of food, stacked high and steaming, a full-course meal. Glazed chicken and stuffed figs, roasted mushrooms and sweet peppers sprinkled with something that made Lucy's stomach grumble. Cucumber and avocado salad, baked spaghetti squash and turnip, fried cauliflower. And the desserts. Chocolate torts, and crème brûlée and grapes so ripe, they were sticky sweet.

Lucy pressed against the window. Loke grabbed her wrist. "No."

"But I'm hungry." There was a door. And a latch somewhere. Just a little left. She reached.

"Lucy."

"I'm hungry," she insisted and somehow managed to break his hold. She opened the door and smells assailed her. Sweet and savoury and spicy. God, she'd never been so hungry.

Loke put himself directly in her way when she reached for the chicken. "You can't eat this food."

Lucy stretched around him, grasping. "But—"

Loke plucked the chicken out of her hand and dropped it onto the floor. Lucy followed it down and tried to grab it. It slid through her fingers, slippery and wet. Loke stepped on it and it squelched. Abruptly, Lucy's mind cleared and she saw the food for what it was, though she couldn't identify it. It was a green mass of slime, most like algae, if she had to put a name to it. It smelled like a sewer and the slime coated her fingers.

Lucy whimpered and swiped her hands over the ground to try to clean them. She touched something warm and soft, like a living body. She was confused at first, there didn't seem to be anything beneath her, but then the floor moved and she yelled again, jolting upright and going right for her whip. Her fingers fumbled as she watched a creature unfold itself from the floor. It was wood-brown and creaked every time it moved, its limbs long and tree-like, its eyes as black and as emotionless as jet stones.

"Does our meal offend you?" Its voice snapped like tree limbs. "We're told this is what humans like to eat. And everyone eats it. Like pigs. Gorge and swallow and hiccup like nasty little swine. Eat, human."

Lucy didn't know what to do. She backpedaled and hit the buffet table. It rocked back and a few plates fell and shattered on the floor. More creatures unearthed from nooks she didn't know were nooks until they were empty and black eyes peeped at her from every direction. She had a ludicrous thought that went something like, _is the entire boat living_?

Loke stepped beside her and put his side against hers; she felt more stable after that. "Who are you?"

"The Queen's ferrymen," said a voice to Lucy's right. She whirled on her heel and found a creature disentangling himself from the boat. It was portly but otherwise, it looked identical to the first that appeared.

"The Queen of Bone?" Lucy squeaked.

"There is only one queen in Hell," the first replied.

She had to get off the boat. She lurched for the door. More ferrymen showed themselves, blocking her way. They were small, as tall as her last rib, but there was something deranged about them. Not that she could place it exactly. Their three long fingers? Their bottomless eyes? Their thin lips, like cracks in tree bark? Or the way they reached for Lucy, cold hunger in their eyes?

"You won't leave," said the first ferryman.

"There's no swimming in the River of Forgetting," whispered another from above.

"There is drowning—" said another.

"And there is howling—" added one from behind.

"And there is deadening," said one right below Lucy's foot.

"And there is forgetting." There was a pause of silence, and then,

"There is no escaping, though."

"You'll—"

"Die."

"It's best to submit. You'll see the queen. She's saved you," the first ferryman spoke again. "You owe her that much respect."

"And a boon."

"A bone to pick her tooth, maybe, even," said someone else to chortles of laughter. "This one." Someone grabbed Lucy's pinky finger and wrenched on it. She imagined her finger coming straight off, and the Queen of Bone cleaning it with long, jagged teeth meant for such things. She pulled her hand up to her chest with a squeak.

"Or the child. She loves children."

"Tasty. Tasty little feet. And eyeballs," glowed a ferryman on Lucy's left. One beside him nudged him hard.

"Those are the parts she feeds to us."

The first ferryman jostled the second. "The Queen loves the toes and the eyeballs. She told me herself. Succulent."

"She did not." More shoving. And more ferrymen were getting involved, until there was a small knot in front of Lucy pushing back and forth, back and forth, with little regard for their ship or their food. So many had left their posts, there was now a hole in the hull, and black sludgy water was slowly seeping in. It scared Lucy to look at it, it reminded her of the night sky, but not the sky that could be seen from a field, the kind that would surround you if you were alone in space, without a star in reach. It made her feel alone and empty.

"Don't touch it." Loke pulled her back from a puddle. The ferrymen didn't care, they rolled right through it, splashing black water everywhere. Anyone it touched either moaned with pain or pleasure. Lucy didn't know what was happening, what the water was doing to them, but it scared her. She stated the obvious,

"We have to get out of here."

Loke looked for an exit and pointed to where they'd come in. The floor beyond was patchy, holes opening up to the water below, but it was their best bet. Lucy went first, wading out through the now-raging war and racing to the railing. It was hard to see outside the circle of light but she thought she saw rocks on either side of the river. The only problem was that it was so far away.

They hit a rock underwater and jostled. A bit of that midnight water splashed up and touched Lucy's palm. She was thrown into a memory that wasn't hers, though she was in it.

She recognized it immediately, the scene had haunted her dreams. She looked wrathful, staring down Jackal. He was scared, she could feel it, even if she didn't know it at the time. _Or if I didn't care_ , Lucy mused darkly. She would have done anything that day.

She watched with great fascination and horror as her magic lashed out and ended his life. For an instance not nearly long enough to call a second, she was Jackal. She was watching Urano Metria barrel down on her and she was drawing in a choking breath and she was burning from the outside in, turning charred, and then flaking to ash so small, only the wind could pick her up.

Terrified, Lucy gasped and brushed the water from her hand, thusly flinging away the memory. Another drop came for her, though, and she was pushed back down into a dream-like sequence.

She was under a bridge. She turned her head and watched a version of Lucy pick herself up out of the rubble. Real Lucy recognized this day, too. This was the day she killed Akio. This wasn't really the demon, though, not precisely. This was one of her clones.

Dream Lucy pulled back Sagittarius' arrow and loosed. It slammed through Akio as merciless as she'd ever seen. The regret hadn't come until after. When she had a moment to replay it all in her mind. She got over it, it was necessary, otherwise, Akio would have killed her. This memory, though, painted her as a monster. The demon, like Jackal, was frightened, Lucy could feel it, her heart hammered in the same tune. She felt the arrows hit her chest, full of magic and killing power, and she felt the demon wheezing and shuddering. Death throws. It was unnerving to die.

"Lucy!" Loke jarred her out of the memory and Lucy remembered that she was in Hell, not in Magnolia, and she was on a living ship. She was standing in the glow of lamps that were actually, likely, creatures if she looked, and Loke was with her. Everything else was the past. She focused on her spirit. His eyes were stretched wide and he wasn't gaping at her.

She was reticent to see what this new threat was because every one seemed worse than the last but she had to.

Lucy let her eyes focus beyond the bow of the boat. Everything was black, black, black and blacker, the farther out she looked, but her ears did solid by her. They were filled with the lap of water against the boat, and, more than that, the rush of water hitting ground, like that which fell over a waterfall.

"We need to get off this boat," Lucy reiterated and hunted for a way. The current was pulling them execrably forward. She didn't think they were strong enough to swim in it if they jumped. Besides, if they did, what other effects would the water have on her?

There was a ruckus behind her. Lucy had almost forgotten about the ferrymen, and they had almost forgotten about her. She'd caught their attention again, though, and they'd stopped fighting with each other. Some were missing limbs and eyes and hunks of their wood-like skin but they didn't bleed. They barely even showed signs of injury, for that matter. They trekked forward, looking more malicious than they had before, muttering amongst themselves the same word. Lucy strained to hear.

"Faster. Faster," they chanted, and when the boat jolted towards the waterfall, Lucy understood why.

"You'll kill us!"

"The Queen has no need for the living," said the nearest ferryman.

Lucy's mind whirled, her body, though, was already deciding what it wanted to do, pulling out her whip. She'd take her chance with the water if she had to.

The railing was smooth; she used it to boost herself up. Once she was precariously balanced, she got out her whip and hunted for the shadow of a stalagmite or something that she could wrap her whip around.

There was a lot of blank, open space, starless night. The waterfall rushed in her ears, they were so close. Loke was at her back; she felt him gather magic and prepared herself for the drain on her strength. His light ignited the night and Lucy saw the grim truth. They were close to the waterfall, within two hundred meters, and there was nothing to grab on to. No stalactites or stalagmites or outcroppings, there was just flat shore a hundred meters in either direction and turbid water.

Loke loosed his spell and Lucy's strength drained. She wavered on her feet and almost fell forward into the water. She'd be crushed by the boat if she fell now, sucked under and forgotten. She locked her knees but had to tell Loke, "No more magic."

He was already stopping, anyway, feeling the problem as surely as Lucy did. The ferrymen were approaching, though, with their hands outstretched and their little black eyes hard as diamonds. Lucy thought she could feel the Queen in their gaze. She was watching them, eager for their misstep.

Loke came right behind her, a barrier between her and the ferrymen. "Jump in!"

What other choice did she have? Lucy closed her eyes and gasped in a breath and leapt.

She never hit the water, black shadow reached out and grabbed her around the waist and the chest as if it was a solid thing, yanking her and Loke into shore, to their savior.


	10. Chapter 10

Lucy was deposited onshore on her knees. She sat there for a moment, the River of Forgetting lapping at the shoreline just inches away, horrid memories just inches away, terror just inches away. She could not move. She needed a minute. Just a minute. To get herself together.

She did not have a minute.

Loke was dropped not so gently beside her. His foot _was_ in the river and he _was_ seeing something terrible. His own personal nightmare come to life. Some wrong he’d done to someone else, displayed for him. He was shaking and he was clenching Hell’s stony shore with white-knuckled hands. His teeth were gnashing. And Lucy couldn’t do a thing about it. She was _aware_ of Loke beside her, but she wasn’t watching and she wasn’t helping, she was only looking _up_.

Hell hadn’t changed Zeref from what Lucy could see. His hair, in the quiet red glow of fireflies, was raven’s wing black, his eyes were dark drops of ink, set deep in his face and without bottom. His hands, though, that’s where things got strange. They were red. No. Not _just_ red, but dripping. Blood. It caked beneath his nails and slipped between his fingers. It left marks on her arm when he grabbed her and lifted her to her feet. It was warm and not at all tacky, it was so fresh. Lucy didn’t pull away because he spread her arms wide and looked at her belly the way she wished Natsu would, with adoration. He looked at her like he was human. Like _she_ was. Like her an Natsu’s baby as a gift and not a burden.

“Let her go.” Loke had freed himself from the water. Physically, at least. His face was sweaty and his eyes had lines at the edges they’d never had before. He was trembling with violence, half trapped in memory, half living in the present.

Zeref’s mouth hitched in a small, lopsided grin before he released her. Lucy wanted to tell him to touch her again, just her arm, or her hands. It was the closest she’d been to Natsu in months and she wasn’t prepared for how empty she felt when he let her go. But then Loke stood between her and Zeref and the opportunity was so far away, it felt impossible.

Not only that, though.

She recalled the _last_ time they’d met with Zeref, and the months she’d spent cursing his name came rushing back to her. She pushed the Demon King. She pushed him so hard, he stumbled back against the wall and stayed there like he’d been shot through the heart.

“How _dare_ you?”

“Lucy—” Zeref began like they were on a first-name basis. Perhaps they were, almost as close now as any two people could be, Natsu the loss between them.

Lucy quivered. She had to do _something_ with herself and hit his shoulder again, pushing him back into the rocks. “How _dare_ you?” she asked again.

He responded with, “I had no choice.”

“You _did._ You’re just _selfish_.”

“Yes.”

Another smack. “And _horrible_.”

Zeref winced and accepted the blow. “Yes.”

“ _Lucy_ ,” Loke snapped, horrified, and grabbed her arm. She wrenched out of his grip and pushed Zeref again.

 “And he’s—he’s here because of you.” Zeref was blurry. Lucy blinked angry tears from her eyes. “Did you get what you wanted, Zeref? Was this the death you dreamed of?”

“You know it’s not.”

“Then what was it worth?”

He only looked at her with regretful eyes. Lucy didn’t _care_ to see his morose. She turned from him, towards the river. Her tears came more freely than she’d anticipated. She rubbed her cheeks raw and was allowed to do so in semi-privacy. When she wasn’t sniffling, she thought she heard the quiet moans of lost souls.

“Is this river real?” Lucy broke the silence finally. “Are those memories real?”

“Yes,” Zeref said. He added, “That’s what happens when a person drowns in the Gleaner’s river. Their souls are forced to live through their worst memories,” so she didn’t think _yes_ was the only thing he could say.

Lucy turned to face him again. She could see Natsu in the slope of his nose and in the curvature of his mouth. “Drown?”

“You can die in Hell,” Zeref responded.

“Then what happens?”

“You’re not given the bliss you hope for.”

“Then why would anyone…”

“Because,” it was Loke that answered, “it seems easier than continuing the torment.”

There was a shiver growing between her shoulder blades. Lucy shifted to quash it. “Where is Natsu?”

“The Pit.”

Lucy latched onto the knowledge like a dog on a bone. _The Pit_ seemed like a _real_ place. It had a name, Zeref obviously knew the location. “How do I get there?”

“The way has to be known,” Zeref said. “I can show you, but I cannot tell you.”

“What kind of rule is that?” Lucy demanded.

He lifted his shoulder in an infuriatingly human way. “I don’t make them. not here.” He asked then, “Can you walk?”

“We’re not travelling with him.” Loke was _firm_ on that stance.

“It’s my decision,” Lucy reminded him.

Loke’s hands balled into fists. “I’m here to protect you. Let me do my job. That entails _not_ travelling with him.”

“I don’t need protecting from him,” Lucy said. “He’s going to take us to Natsu.”

“Is he? Or is he going to turn on us like he did his own brother?”

Lucy wanted to throttle him. “If he wanted to hurt us, he would have let us drown in the river, or he would have sliced us up even _before_ that. When Tobach was attacking us. That was you that saved us, wasn’t it?”

Zeref inclined his head.

“See?” Lucy asked triumphantly.

Loke’s face was cloudy. A memory slid its way into Lucy’s mind, shadow rearing up to cleave Loke in two, too. She pushed him back through their connection and thought loudly at him, _he didn’t hurt you._ Loke thought back just as loudly, _he was going to._

“You can either come or you can go back to the celestial realm,” Lucy said aloud.

Loke was as angry as she’d ever see him. He didn’t like ultimatums and he didn’t like being ordered around when he thought those orders were irrational. He was a good spirit, though. “Fine. If you’re set on this path, we’ll follow it. But you need rest before we do anything. We’ve been running from imps and worms and boats. It’s too much.”

Lucy knew he was right, she could feel it. Her body was protesting; the baby was protesting. There were ghostly cramps in her abdomen that would only get worse if she remained standing. Her traitorous mouth, though. “I can keep going for a while.”

“She’s lying,” Loke said to Zeref.

Lucy stuck out her chin in defiance. Zeref held her eye, examining her. “You’re good to my brother,” he said eventually. “But your spirit is right.”

“I want to see him now,” Lucy said. “I don’t care—”

“You’re acting like a spoiled child.” Loke almost never scolded her like that. Lucy was shocked into silence.

“There’s a grove the Queen doesn’t dare to go,” Zeref said. “This way.” He turned and started away. Shadow clung to his form, and fireflies trailed after him. Lucy hurried to catch up.

“Why doesn’t the Queen go to it?”

“Too many that defy her,” Zeref said and Lucy shivered again.

“Are we going to be safe there?”

“Safe enough.”

Loke swore fluently. “Safe _enough_? Lucy, you can’t really be considering this.”

“I am,” she deadpanned.

He stood in front of her, brilliant in his fury. “So far, we’ve come into contact with a demon, imps that _tore that demon apart_ , a worm that chased us down and a living boat that was honest to goodness going to throw us over the waterfall and kill us because, and I quote, ‘ _the queen has no need for_ _the living.’_ If these are the creatures that dare _not_ defy her, I don’t want to meet the ones that would. It’s not the place for us.”

“I wouldn’t let any harm come to my nephew,” Zeref said without turning around.

Lucy glowed. Loke scowled. “We don’t even know if it’s a boy.”

Zeref didn’t entertain his argument. Lucy caught up with him. It felt strange waking alongside the man she’d often dreamed of exacting revenge upon but now that she knew _he_ knew where Natsu was, her anger seemed petty and small.

“How is he?”

“Not himself,” Zeref answered without requiring clarification. “The queen torments him. And even when she doesn’t, he believes everything is a trick. He looks for ghosts and fights all the time.”

Her heart ached, remembering Natsu’s _stop tormenting me_ and his _leave me in peace_. Soon, he wouldn’t always feel that way. “I have Natsu’s book.”

“ _Lucy_ ,” Loke barked.

She bit her lip until she was afraid she’d break through it. She knew he was right to be cautious, but if they couldn’t confide in Zeref, who had _left_ the book for them, then who could they confide in?

“It’s no secret,” Zeref assured Loke. “All of Hell knows you’re here with it. They felt it the moment you entered. Keep it hidden until the times you’re sure you’re alone. That book _is_ Natsu.”

Meaning, his entire life was writ into its pages and sealed with magic. If the book disappeared, so did he. “I would never let anything happen to it,” Lucy swore.

Zeref looked back over his shoulder, his eyes flashing. “I know.”

Lucy said, “You left it for us. That day on Kardia Cathedral’s steps.”

“I hoped you’d find a way to make it so this wasn’t the only thing he knew.”

“You didn’t _know_ I could bring him back?” Lucy asked, confused.

“I heard rumors of magics that could bring back those lost.” He again looked back over his shoulder, this time directly at Loke. “And I assumed your spirits would lead you in the right direction, regardless of consequences.”

Lucy only heard a portion of his words. “But you didn’t _know_ we could bring him back? Not absolutely?”

“Is _anything_ in life absolute?”

“And you condemned him anyway?” She was angry again.

“You’re resourceful,” Zeref said coolly, very much his regal, selfish self.

She hated him for being careless with everything and everyone but himself and wanted to put him in his place. “Well, you were right. I _am_ going to bring him home. I have a key. Elieen Belserion spelled it for me. I just have to figure out—”

“Enough.” For the second time in moments, Loke stunned her into silence with a curt order.

“The lion is right,” Zeref said and Loke looked at him curiously. “Secrets have a heavy price in Hell and there’s always someone listening.”

The fireflies spread out and illuminated a rough cut hole in the wall. Zeref marked the wall with his bloody hand and looked left and right for spying eyes. Lucy joined him and found no one. She looked back and he’d ducked into the opening, a train of fireflies behind him. She tried to do the same. Loke grabbed her hand.

“I know it seems that our luck’s turned, but promise me you won’t forget what he is.”

“I think he just made that pretty clear.”

“I want to hear you say it, Lucy,” Loke pressed. “I know you’re always trying to see the good in people. For once, just remember he let Natsu burn them both to death in front of Kardia Cathedral. And he did it without mercy.”

She told him, “I’ll never forget.”

“Hurry,” Zeref called from the darkness. Lucy wiggled her arm from Loke’s grasp and ducked inside.

Immediately, damp and cold air wrapped around her. Lucy shivered. Fireflies lit upon her skin and warmth from their humming bodies dripped into her. She didn’t feel fear, though she was cautious of the encroaching walls in case she nudged them and the fireflies acted like hornets, stinging or biting when threatened.

They walked in silence. The pathway got narrow, and then it got large. They went up for some ways, and then down, down, _down_. Down towards Natsu. She could _feel_ they were getting closer. For one thing, the number of fireflies that she’d come to think of as synonymous with her dragon slayer-turned-demon, increased, and Hell got colder. So much colder.

Loke paused to reach into the celestial realm and wiggle free a hat, scarf and mitts for Lucy. He draped them on her like she was a child. Zeref didn’t wait and they had to rush to catch up, sidling through a narrow passage thick with roots and dust, and coming out on the other side to a huge cave with its own white, white light. The first Lucy had seen in this place.

It spilled from the bottom of a deep cavern filled with deep, black water. A miniature sun in this dark place. Lucy leaned over the ledge and stared down to the water’s rippling surface, trying to determine what was making the world glow. She thought she saw the eclipse gate in the rippling waves and a dragon. Zirconis. It opened a great, huge maw and then—

A creature rose from the deep and shattered the image for Lucy. Her eyes were the yellow of a Hunter’s moon and her skin was pink and slimy-looking. Her mouth was pale. She lifted her hands to the surface of the water. The parts that weren’t long-nailed and sharp were webbed. She had a tail. Like a mermaid. She was ugly, though. Horrible to look at. Her smile was a piranha’s and destined only for Loke. He seemed determined to look anywhere but at her (it).

If she could speak, she said nothing, watching their procession. Lucy pulled her hat down further on her ears and shuffled closer to Zeref. He seemed unconcerned with the appearance of one of Hell’s denizens.

The path they followed looped around once, then there came another hole in the wall. This once led not to another path, but to a room of fine powder. It littered the floors, thick and white. It coated Lucy’s feet and sprinkled her shins; it was lifted into the air with each step before it settled down again.

“What is this?” Lucy asked.

“Bone,” Loke responded. “Dried bone.”

She was revolted. Zeref, however, sifted through the mess like he’d done it a hundred times. “Don’t be frightened.”

Lucy asked, “What is this place?”

“A graveyard.”

“One of the Queens?”

He turned to her. “There are many places in Hell like this. She loves them all, that doesn’t mean she _makes_ them all, though.”

“But she knows them all.”

“Once, I’m sure she did,” Zeref agreed. “Hell is infinite, though, and even she forgets. Rest, Lucy. You’ll be safe here.”

“In the bones of others.”

“Hell is littered with them,” he informed her.

“Can’t we find another place?” Loke asked.

Zeref’s gaze could cut through stone. “These bones were left to rot for so long, they turned to dust, meaning she hasn’t settled her gaze over this part of Hell in millennia. If you were looking for a safe place, _this is it.”_

He was probably right. Lucy was afraid to ask what exactly made it so the Queen of Bone abandoned this part of Hell, though. It felt like summoning a demon. “This is fine, Loke.”

He pursed his lips but Lucy could see that he was as reluctant to move as Zeref was. Movement brought attention and they’d drawn enough of that as of late. He stripped his jacket and laid it across the floor in a corner where the bone was thinnest. “Rest here. When you’re awake, I’ll send Virgo to watch you while I get you some food.”

“If you do that, though, you risk revealing your location to your fellow spirits,” Zeref said with a smile. “They could tell your Spirit King, and then what?”

“I’d rather that than trust her here with you alone,” Loke told him.

Zeref’s smile was as dull as a well-loved knife. “It’s wise not to trust anyone in Hell.”

Loke turned his back on him. “Sleep, Lucy.”

Sleep was where Natsu was, but… “Will the Spirit King be angry?”

Loke responded with a command of, “Sleep,” while Zeref said, “No celestial spirit is supposed to step foot in Hell.”

Lucy searched Loke’s eyes. “Is that true?”

“Did he not mention his actions are _treason_?” Zeref _was_ mean. He took joy out of the prospect of Loke squirming. Loke wouldn’t twitch, though.

“Every rule has an exception. You taught me that when you saved me, Lucy.”

She heard his words. A part of her felt immediately guilty. A part of her agreed with Loke. Every rule _did_ have an exception and the Spirit King _had_ shown himself receptive to reason. He would see how much she needed Natsu and he’d forgive her the trespass. He _had_ to.

“Either way, I suppose it’s something to figure out at a later date, isn’t it?” Zeref asked soothingly like he hadn’t, just a second before, been trying to stoke a fire.

Loke turned his back on the once acclaimed Demon King. “Sit down and sleep, Lucy. I won’t let anything happen to the baby _or_ you.” Whereas Zeref had only promised the baby’s life.

“Sit with me.” Her orders had become more frequent as of late, disguised as requests. Loke never had any problem defining the difference, though. He sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. He was warm. Fireflies handed on her arms and on her legs, an added bit of heat of their own, so she felt almost comfortable.

Lucy watched Zeref and tried to read him. Rocks had more emotion. He settled down on the other side of the cave, his knees to his chest. His clothes were tattered and his skin was ripped, though it no longer bled. Would he ever heal or were the wounds he sustained in Hell his for the rest of his existence? Who could say?

Lucy’s eyes closed and she stopped thinking about Zeref and Loke completely. There was Natsu. He paced his cave, back and forth, back and forth, a bear agitated. He saw her and stopped abruptly.

“Hi, Natsu,” Lucy said quietly.

“I didn’t ask you here.”

“You never have to.”

He pinched his eyes shut and pushed against his temples like he could squeeze her out of his skull. Lucy crossed to him and grabbed his wrists, taking his hands away. He let her until his hands were by his hips, and then he brushed her off. “Don’t.”

She moved back. “I’m with your brother.”

Natsu’s eyes moved left towards a flashy bit of glass on the ground, where Lucy saw herself as she was now, laying back with Loke by her side, Zeref across from her. Natsu’s gaze didn’t linger there long, he came back to her. “You need to leave.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m _finished_ with this. You’re a coward, Queen. If you wanted to kill me, you should have done so long ago. You can’t, though, can you? Otherwise, you wouldn’t keep playing this tired game.”

“Or,” Lucy countered, “The other option is you think I’m something I’m not. A figment of your imagination, when in fact I’m real. I’m _here,_ Natsu. For you.”

He shook his head. “You’re not.”

“I _am._ And I’m coming. You’re going to be my spirit. If that’s what you want to be.” Because everyone enjoyed a choice. Or the illusion thereof. “You’ll be freed from here. Zeref knows. He’s helping me.”

“Even if you _were_ here,” Natsu pointed to one of the broken hunks of mirror. “I’d tell you that was one of the Queen’s toys. The real Zeref would never step forward and help you.”

“He’s happy to have a nephew,” Lucy said, drawing on Zeref’s assessment.

Natsu’s attention flitted down to her belly, then back up to her eyes. “ _Stop_ it.”

“He wants to help me get to you. He wants us to be happy. That’s why he left your book for me to find after he—after you died,” she amended. It wouldn’t do to accuse the man that was helping her. “That’s why he’s been helping me and Loke get through Hell. Not because he’s a tool of the Queen of Bone.”

“Enough!” Natsu’s voice didn’t have near as much bite as Loke’s did. He wasn’t as angry, or as desperate. He _wanted_ to believe in this, as Loke wanted _not_ to believe in Zeref. Lucy had faith in both matters. She _was_ a real girl and Natsu would accept her as such and Zeref _would_ help her achieve her goals. He _would_. Or he would suffer.

She made herself soft. “Come here.”

“I don’t want to, Lucy,” Natsu told her.

“That’s a lie.” She held out her hand. He pinched his eyes closed but stepped forward. She took his hand. He was cold. “Your brother has us safe in a cavern by a pool. There’s bone dust everywhere. He says the Queen has forgotten about it.”

“Every place there is bone the Queen knows,” he responded.

“Not this one,” Lucy rebuked. “We’re safe. And once I sleep—because Loke says I’ve been running too much, from too many things, he’s quite bossy now—Zeref’s going to help us find you. We’re going to march into the depths of Hell and we’re going to bring you home. Just as soon as I figure out the spell. You’ll be with me. For real. And nothing’s going to be in our way. You’ll be a spirit, Natsu. Once I can call upon.”

His face changed. “A slave.”

He almost broke her heart. “Loke’s not a slave. You know that. This _is_ a life. You’ll be your own person. Really. You can come home. Don’t you want that?”

After a moment’s consideration, he took her hands and kissed her palms. “More than anything.”

“Then believe me. Believe we can do this. Believe Zeref wants to help. Believe we can find each other and believe you can come home.”

His eyes were bright but Natsu never cried. “Lucy—”

“ _Trust_ me.”

His fingers traced her temple and her chin, and her chest where her heart was. His face screwed up, thoughtfully. Eventually, he said, “Okay.”

Lucy felt her mouth quavering but killed the smile. Natsu needed stoicism. Not relief. He needed to believe she was sincere. He needed to believe this was _real._ His face showed his hope. The emotion made Lucy felt brave enough to command, “Make love to me.” She needed him.

And he needed her.

He stripped her of everything, her clothing, her mitts, her scarf, even the toque Loke had given her. He kissed her furiously, her lips and her neck, and especially her chest, just over her heart, and took his time only on her body. His lips were soft but his _hands._ He grabbed her hard enough she _hurt_. He made love to her sweet enough, though, that she knew bliss. He came in her and afterward, she wasn’t cold. She kissed his shoulder and his neck and his lips. “We’ll be together soon.”

Natsu gathered himself up and fixed his clothes. The last thing he did was swipe blonde hair from Lucy’s cheek. “I’ll search,” he promised. “If you’re real, I’ll find you.”

“And if I’m not?” she dared ask.

His answer was immediate and simple. “Then Hell will forget, and so will I.”

Lucy was shaken awake. Her eyes popped open. Loke was still beside her, though he was asleep. Only Zeref was alert, kneeling down beside her, his eyes aglow with a light she found not only foreign from the man that first found them, but utterly _unnerving._

“Are you okay?” she felt obligated to ask.

Zeref said, “There’s a place in Hell rich in secrets.”

She sat up fully. “What?”

“A place where you can find the spell you’re looking for.” His breath smelled like desiccated bones, putrid. “A library.”

“There is?” Lucy _almost_ felt like she should be asking _why_ there was a library in Hell, but there were a great many things here that she didn’t understand.

“We’ll find our answers there, I’m sure of it,” Zeref affirmed.

“Where is it?”

“Below the waterfall, the River of Forgetting slows into a bog. You need to cross it.”

Lucy heard the _click, click, clicking_ of nails on stone. She sat up straighter and strained her ears. “What is that?”

Zeref, too, turned to look over his shoulder. His face was strained. _Click, click, click_. Louder, faster. Yips, too. They filled the air.

_Dogs,_ Lucy thought, but they didn’t sound like any dogs she knew. Their calls were too ghostly. Wild. Strange. And hostile.

“Hellhounds,” Zeref breathed.

“What does that mean?”

“The Queen’s found us.” He listened to a chorus of howls.

“Lucy?” That was Loke, rising from his fitful sleep. He reached for her and she reached back, the rift between them healed for now. “What is that?”

“Hellhounds,” Zeref answered again. He cocked his head and listened as if he could tell what they were saying. Eventually, he told them, “They’re focused.”

“Meaning?” Loke asked.

“They’re here for me, not for you.”

Lucy felt panic; Loke, however, was a lake on a warm summer’s day. The news didn’t bother him, he just wanted to be sure it was accurate. “How do you know”

“Because we always play this game.” Zeref stood and faced the doorway. Shadow coiled around him and the fireflies that had been on the ceiling dropped to the ground, their fires snuffed, their bodies still, abruptly dead.

Then Lucy could suddenly see nothing; it was so dark. She got to her feet and tried not to think of the priestess; Loke joined her. She could feel him pulling on his magic to light the room but it sputtered between them, flat and dull. When that failed, Lucy listened intently and unhooked her whip.

Snarls on the left. Snarls on the right. Behind her and in front, too. Claws scraping over the floor. A ferocious growl, a sudden and violent move from the body in front of her, she could feel the _air_ waver, and a hurt _yip_ came from a direction she couldn’t identify _._

_This isn’t good enough; I need to see,_ Lucy thought and scrabbled for magic. A small thread came loose. She thrust it at Loke and Loke’s light sparked. The cave lit up. It was full of hounds, large, black furred, snarling. Their mouths dripped with saliva, their teeth were _sharp_. They surrounded Zeref and darted in, sometimes three at a time, grabbing his arms and his legs, rearing up and tearing at his shoulders, trying to get him down on the ground.

He pushed them off for a moment, cut one in two, beheaded another, disembowelled a third, the mess spilling on the floor and wetting the dust so it clumped together, red, stinking the place up with the smell of the body’s deep blood.

It wasn’t enough.

While Zeref was distracted by a hound in front of him, one leapt up behind him and yanked him down and that was the end of it. A pair grabbed his shoulders in their mouths and yanked him towards a clump of shadows in the corner, denser than the rest. They slid through and like they were entering a doorway leading into a distant room. They disappeared and the doorway closed.

Aside from Loke, Lucy was alone again.

 


	11. Chapter 11

The breath whispered from Lucy's lungs and fogged in front of her face. It was so cold. Her feet were numb. The tip of her nose was, too. Even her eyes were cold. Any heat Hell may have had was gone, the hellhounds had fled with it.

"Lucy," Loke said.

"I don't want to hear it," she said back.

"But you need to."

"I _don't._ " She picked through the sopping bone dust and ignored the way the smell of blood and guts clung to the back of her throat. To the way it made her both repulsed and hungry. Being pregnant, she wanted a lot of things she wouldn't normally. Repulsive things that, though Loke was a good sport, he, too, thought were offside.

" _Lucy_. We can't go out there. They might be waiting for us."

"We can't stay here, either," she reasoned. "They know where we are. Just because they only took Zeref doesn't mean that they're not coming back for us."

Loke clenched his fingers so tight, his knuckles went white. "We should stop."

"Did we just have the same conversation?"

He clarified, "No. I mean we should try to find a way back."

He couldn't possibly mean it because her will would eventually be his, it was the nature of their new bond, but she felt _betrayed._ She whipped around on him. "We're too deep now. The only way out is through."

"Says Desperate Lucy, who thinks she's found hope, but Zeref Dragneel is no one's saviour," Loke said. "You used to know that. Before your judgement was clouded _._ "

"You told me Natsu's book is making you crazy," Lucy kicked back at him. "You're in no position to tell me when my judgement's a mess. And you promised. You promised we'd find him. You promised to help me."

Loke's throat bobbed and his breath snorted through his nose. She knew she had him before he stepped in front of her and checked the hallway. He sent magic to illuminate the rough cut stone. There was nothing but the scorched prints of the hellhounds. They'd come this way, stepped out of the darkness and seized what they had no right to. Lucy was so mad, she wished they'd come back so _she_ could cleave them in two.

"Come." He took her arm. Lucy shoved him off.

" _Don't_."

Loke stopped, a pillar in front of her, and looked at her. Really, really looked at her. "Do you want my help or not?"

Angry with him or not, she was suddenly ashamed. "I'm sorry, Loke."

He shook his head and offered her his hand again. She accepted and they fell into step together. Loke asked, "So where are we going?"

"Zeref told me there was a place in Hell, across a bog, where knowledge was gathered. He doesn't know how to make Natsu a spirit but he thinks the answers will be there."

His grip tightened up. " _Zeref_ told you where to look to find a spell to make Natsu a hellfire spirit?"

"Yes."

"And it's across a bog."

"Yes."

"Let me guess, the water that runs through there is the River of Forgetting."

"So? It seems like _all_ the water in Hell is."

"We're being set up." She tried to take her hand away from him; he wouldn't let her. She grunted in frustration and smacked his shoulder; Loke was unaffected, saying again firmly, "We're being set up."

"Zeref wants to help!"

"At _what cost_? He's never done anything for free. You know that, you just need to think about it!"

"It's not like that."

"It is. Everyone here thinks this plump human with a little half-demon in her belly is a nice snack. He's luring you. Like the Handmaidens lured you. They're tempting you with something you really, really want, Lucy, and they're going to wait until the noose is nice and tight around your throat and then they're going to drop the ground out from under you and you'll hang until they decide you shouldn't hang anymore."

"If that is the case, at least I could say that I _tried._ "

Loke looked up as they stepped out of the tunnel to the blackness above them as if praying, Lucy looked forward, everything she'd ever wanted was _here_. The waterfall rushed by. There were no boats, no ferrymen. No hellhounds waiting to snatch her by the hair and pull her away. There was just rock. There was just water.

"How do we get to the bog?"

"This way." Though he still held her hand, he'd drifted away from her to peek over the edge of the waterfall. Lucy joined him and felt her stomach crawl into her throat. There was a cliff. It angled downwards at a steep seventy-five-degree angle. Boulders marred her way and at the bottom was a field of brimstone that jutted out of the flooded ground like knobby, yellow teeth, each of which was surrounded by islands of sickly pale white moss. This part of Hell seemed to have its own lights, eerie blue bulbs that dripped off strange coral-like trees that grew from the brimstone. There were no leaves, just craggy branches and knotty roots.

The smell that drifted up from the splashing waterfall was putrid. Rot and mildew. The rocks were slick with it.

On the other side of the bog stood a massive, hulking building. It, too, was made of brimstone. It was spotted with mould and its windows were without glass, eyeless sockets. They were dark, all except one, where a poisoned blue light shone, welcoming her inside. The front door was double-wide and double-tall as if made for a great beast. There was a plaque outside, choked in thorny vines that read, _Athenaeum_ in something that Lucy would bet was not ink and was not paint, it was black-red, like the blood of the heart.

"What does that mean?" Loke wondered.

"Library," Lucy informed him. "It means library." In Hell. What gruesome things could she find inside?

"You're still sure about this?"

"Yes."

"I'll go down first," Loke decided. "You follow right after. And trace my footsteps _exactly_. And if you're going to fall, yell. And try to get your hands out. And if you can't stop yourself, protect your head and your belly. And—"

"I got it, Loke." Her voice trembled.

He turned from her but she knew he wore a plaintive expression.

Loke got on the ground at the very edge of the cliff and shimmied over. Two heartbeats and he was completely out of sight. Lucy hurried to the ledge to keep an eye on him. He was down two metres already. There was about thirty more to go.

"Hurry. But be careful."

Lucy got on her butt and shimmied right to the edge. There was a swollen, uneven boulder right beneath her foot. She used it to guide herself down. The next step put her in an awkward position, her foot curved badly, but she was able to rectify it without hurting herself.

The next few metres passed without incident until they came to a massive gap that Loke actually lifted her up and over. He did it without complaint and without showing his nervousness but Lucy was _very_ aware of the ground still fifteen metres below.

"Do you think there'll be someone in the Athenaeum to tell us about hellfire spirits?" Lucy asked to dispel her own nervousness.

"I hope not," was Loke's immediate response. "I've had enough of Hell and her denizens."

Lucy was on the fence about that. She was scared each time they faced another obstacle but at the same time, they made her feel closer to Natsu, knowing—or _assuming_ —that he'd faced them all before, too. This had been his home for months now and it was like getting a glimpse into the life he'd led without her. It was dreary. But now it was a part of her, too. There would be no gap of understanding between them, no place in his head that he could go that she could not.

Loke took a step and the ground beneath his feet shifted. He corrected to a boulder that was even more unstable. He went down hard and his shoulder reopened where an imp had torn him up, leaving a blood trail on the rocks as he slid uncontrolled.

"Loke!" Lucy chased after him as quickly as she dared but wasn't fast enough. He bounced hard and fell and then the water had him. It was dragging him down, down, black and unforgiving, to the plunge pool at the bottom. He fell in with nary a sound and was lost from her view.

Lucy stared at the place he'd been, mind tumbling through all the ways she could make it better. Leap in after him? She'd be lost, too. Close his gate? She wasn't sure if she could get it reopened here, so far from the sky, so far from her stars. Beseech the Queen of Bone to give him back, make a deal with her as she had the priestess? She didn't know if she was clever enough to outwit Hell's Queen, as Lady Eileen had suggested.

_You need to get down there._ To the bottom, so she could fish him out of the pool. She was wasting time.

Rocks rolled from beneath her feet, too, and hit the bottom way below. A couple cracked like melons beneath a hammer. _That could be your head_. And Loke was drowning in the River of Forgetting. Remembering terrible things he'd done to others, remembering terrible things he'd done to himself. She could _feel_ it between their connection. He was suffering. He was screaming. And she wanted to scream, too.

Despite the danger, Lucy leapt to a rock three feet below. She wobbled on her landing and almost went over, but after she'd caught her balance, she felt justified. She was now closer to the water's edge and a stairway of rock that would bring her to the ground by the pool.

The last few metres were navigated breathlessly. Loke couldn't breathe; it felt like she couldn't, either.

Lucy hit the damp bottom and was peppered with mist from the river. Memories were forced to the surface of her mind. Teary nights after her mother died and her father couldn't comfort her. Finding Levy strung up after Phantom Lord's attack, Loke almost disappearing on her before she knew who and what he was, Erza getting bitten by a poisonous snake and Gray offering to cut her arm off, Aquarius leaving her. Fairy Tail disbanding. Master Makarov burning on a stake.

Lucy dug her nails into her palm and reached into the pool blindly. There were _things_ inside. Slimy, cold things. Her memories got more vivid. Gray was pushed deep inside her whispering, _I'd never leave you._ And he was gone by sunrise. She had her bow in her hand again and Akio was forced back against broken concrete. Natsu's palm was swollen and scaled. Fire was blazing on the steps of Kardia Cathedral and Natsu was _gone._

_It'd be easier if I never had these memories at all,_ Lucy thought. She could pluck them out and drown them in the River of Forgetting. She could forget _everything_ in the River of Forgetting. Her pain. Her sadness. Her purpose.

_Me. I could forget me._

Fingers clasped on her wrist and she came back to herself. She was shoulder-deep in the black, rotting waters of the River of Forgetting and on the cusp of getting in even deeper.

The fingers on her wrist tightened and she pulled back, using her body weight as leverage.

_Please be Loke. Please be Loke. Please be Loke_ , she chanted. _Please. Please. Please be Loke._

The fingers that emerged first were pale like snow and claw-like. She almost shook off the hand but she noticed the cuff of a black suit and knew that it was, in fact, her spirit. She reached her other hand in and was bombarded with other memories, terrible things she'd done and had done to her. She pushed through them all and felt the collar of Loke's shirt. She gripped it with all of her might and _pulled._ He was stuck for a moment, then came through the water and she was able to haul him onto the bank.

He sputtered and coughed and retched. Below the noise, Lucy heard the river whisper, " _We_ do _belong together, Leo the Lion_." She hunted for the source of the voice and saw a spot in the water that was lighter than the rest. Tendrils of honey-coloured hair pooled on the surface before sinking out of sight. The voice of a woman laughed melodically. It faded and then there was only the sound of the water and Loke's sputtering.

He retched one final time; Lucy held him and pushed his hair back from his forehead. He'd lost his glasses and his eyes were dark-rimmed. He looked haunted and haunting. She thought she'd never forget the way he looked at her. Or the feel of his hand on her cheek, around her _throat,_ as he struggled to make sense of the world he'd climbed into.

He rasped, "Who are you?"

"It's Lucy," she told him around his tightening grip.

"Don't _lie!_ "

Lucy gripped his face between both her hands and looked into his eyes steadily. She would not be afraid. Not of Natsu, not of Loke. "It's _Lucy_."

"No—"

"Yes." She struggled for magic and made it a bridge between them. It sputtered but it touched him the way she wanted it to. Some of the shadow that clung to him dissipated. "Trust me."

His teeth started chattering. His grip loosened. And he looked horrified. "Lucy…"

"It's okay." She took his hand and held it. "It's alright. You fell into the River of Forgetting, but we're okay now. We just have to dry off and change. And we'll be okay. Nothing's going to hurt us here. I'm going to protect you and you're going to protect me and nothing will be able to touch us." She lied and lied and lied. And Loke believed her. He calmed down.

"I fell into the river."

"Yes."

"I saw things. But none of it was real."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

His cheek got sharp when he bit its inside. "No."

"Okay." She stroked his back like she would a cat's. The water still clung to him. It felt like slime and every now and again, his eyes would become unfocused. She let him sit for as long as she thought she reasonably could. "Are you strong enough to get us clothes from the Celestial realm?"

Loke brought in a gasp of air and shuddered, but once that was through, he seemed more like himself. "Yes."

Lucy bolstered him with as much magic as she dared. He opened a small portal and reached through. He came back with towels and clothing, warm stuff that would see them through, long-sleeves and jackets, pants and tall boots made of leather. Gloves.

"You go first," Loke said. "I'll keep watch."

Lucy shook her head. "I'm not leaving you."

He sighed and turned his back. He took off his jacket and his shirt. Lucy turned around when he started working on his pants and followed suit under the watchful eye of the river. The creature that had relinquished her hold on Loke was lurking just below the surface; Lucy could feel her, waiting for an opportunity to claim him again. Lucy would _not_ have it. She glared challengingly at the water until she felt, rather than saw, the creature move away. Loke was hers. Her spirit. Her friend. Hers. Nothing in Hell was going to take him from her unless she said so, and she had not said so.

"Are you finished?" Loke asked.

"Yes. Are you?"

"Yes."

She turned. He looked even more like himself. The deep shadows were faded from beneath his eyes and his clothing was dry. His hair was tousled and there was a thick grey scarf around his neck. He nudged the suit he'd been wearing with the tip of his tall leather boot. A scaly hand came out of the river and grabbed it, pulling it into the murky water. Loke looked sick.

"We need to move."

Always. They were always moving. _It'll be better once we find Natsu,_ Lucy promised herself. _Then we can all protect one another and nothing will stop us from leaving here._ Nothing. She was going to bring everyone home. Even Zeref, if Natsu wanted.

She faced towards the great brimstone structure across the fetid bog and assessed their route and its end. There were a few bridges spanning the largest breaks in land. Rickety and creaky, they made noise though, as far as Lucy could tell, there wasn't any breeze. She assumed it was the water trundling beneath the floating mats that pushed their support structures and made them weaker.

In the places where there were no bridges, the islands were close enough to leap across, if a person was sure-footed and fast enough. If a person weren't front-heavy and sick half of the time.

"I think we can avoid all but the last bridge if we stick to this side." Lucy pointed to the downstream side of the bog where the mats were more frequent and larger and sometimes, there were three or four coral-like trees instead of one. "The less we have to travel on those, the better." She didn't trust them, not for an instant.

"I'll go first and catch you if you can't make it." Loke reached into the Celestial Realm again and with too much effort pulled out a golden rope. He lashed it to his waist and then did the same for Lucy, putting it below the small bump of her belly and tying a square knot so it wouldn't slip on itself. "Just in case."

She squeezed his hand until it probably hurt him. "Please be careful."

"I'm not going back in that water. I promise." He gave her his back and found a good place to begin. The island he chose was within stepping distance of the bank and rocked just slightly when he put his weight on it. Lucy held her breath until he was facing her again with his hands extended, waiting for her to join him.

"It'll hold us both?"

"I think so."

She didn't like a life built on _I think so's_.

"I'm _sure_ , Lucy," Loke redacted. "It's fine."

Lucy took a breath and stepped over the blackness of the River of Forgetting. The island was surprisingly squishy around its nub of brimstone and black water lapped at the toe of her boot through the pale, white moss. But she did not go in.

The strange coral-like tree in the island's centre moaned lowly. She had goosebumps. All up and down her arms, all over her neck and her chest.

Loke side-eyed the tree. It did not move. "I'm going to the next one. Don't waste time here."

"I won't," Lucy confirmed.

Loke had to put a little more effort into the next jump; his heel touched the black water and ripples moved throughout the entire bog. Something below the surface moved calculatingly; the creature that had been so interested in him was back, Lucy could see the lighter colour of her hair. She took out her whip and cracked it into the water. She had no idea if she hit the creature or not but the bog got silent and the hair sunk further below the surface.

Loke was looking frightened from the corner of Lucy's eye; by the time she was looking at him directly, he had his facial features under lock and key. She still told him, "I won't let her take you." Whoever _her_ was. Whatever interest they had in Loke. Or the book he carried.

"I know, Lucy. Come on."

She got a bit of a running start and made it over without issue. The next few islands were the same, far enough away that they had to run, close enough that they made it.

They were more than halfway across when things went awry. Loke fumbled his first landing and pushed into a coral tree. Like a Venus Flytrap, its branches immediately started to move and close in around him. Its light brightened and Lucy saw it for its true nature. It wasn't a tree but a person that had been broken and mangled and crystalized here, in this bog. They all were, hundreds and hundreds of broken people.

Broken arms and fingers held Loke around the waist. He screamed as Lucy had never heard him scream before and burst through the thing's hold. He leapt to the next island. The rope went tight between them and Loke wasn't stopping. Lucy _had_ to follow.

River water splashed when she landed badly; her boots were waterproof now, though, and she was plagued with no waking nightmares. Only acute terror; the person-turned-fossil wrapped its broken arms around her shoulders next and transferred to her the feeling of fear. She was so scared, she couldn't move. She could only sweat and scream as all at once, everything bombarded her in high-definition. Hell was alive and she was trapped inside. They were never going to make it out of this bog. How stupid of her to think so. Loke was going to die and Natsu was going to die. The Queen of Bone was going to find her here, still screaming, and pull her baby from her belly. She was going to chew his fingers to bone, she was going to use his small skull for a chamber pot, she was going to take his barely-formed entrails and make floss to clean his flesh from her teeth.

Lucy was yanked hard around the middle and the coral man's arms shattered around her shoulders. Her terror subsided but the pulling did not. She was at the edge of the island and she had to either leap or fall into the River of Forgetting.

Lucy leapt and barely made it. She had to keep going, though. Loke had made it to the final bridge spanning an island and the other side and he wasn't letting up, pulling her like a cat on a leash. She concentrated and flew past the waking bog. The coral men were wailing and reaching, all around. Another brushed by her and she nearly choked on her fear. It was _almost_ better to stand there and just let the worst happen. It was almost like the Queen of Bone was going to get her anyway.

_Move. Move. Move._ For Natsu and her baby, who were depending on her, for Loke, who was risking so much, and for Zeref, who loved that he had a nephew.

Lucy dodged beneath a coral man and jumped at the edge of the island. She was air born for what felt like a long time. Loke was yanking the rope between his hands, pulling her onwards, but gave that up and dove for her when it became obvious that the bridge would remain just out of range. He grabbed her by one wrist and yanked. Because of that, one foot made it onto the bridge, the other landed in the water.

Lucy sat there for just a moment to catch her breath, to come to terms with her situation until she felt cold, dead fingers closing on her ankle. She was being pulled backwards.

She clawed at the dilapidated bridge but could not break the creature's grasp until shadows swallowed her up and lifted her totally out of the water. They ferried her past the bridge and a panicking Loke to land, where they unfolded like a flower opening to sunlight and released her. When it reformed, Zeref stepped from its deep pit, bruised and bleeding. His left arm was sewn in place at the shoulder with thick, black thread and his leg had a massive bite taken from it and wept blood. Around them, the bog settled like a forest in a dying windstorm. First, the wailing slowed and stopped, then the coral men seized in place, like stiff, ancient trees.

"Zeref!" Lucy squawked. "You're okay!" Or relatively. He _acted_ like he felt nothing, standing straight and strong.

Loke appeared at her side and pulled her back like she was still in danger, though Zeref only looked at her.

Zeref said, "Wraith Bog is alive."

"It would have been nice if you had told us that before we crossed it! Or given us the name, at the very least," Loke said accusingly. "We could have died."

"I wouldn't have let my nephew die," Zeref said and Lucy glowed. She was feeling much more forgiving than Loke.

"How did you get away from the Queen's hellhounds?"

He said flatly, "I killed them."

"But you got hurt." She came forward to examine him. Zeref let her get close, a confused expression on his face as if he'd been denied such a kindness for a very, very long time. Lucy looked at his many wounds; she didn't know where to start. With his shoulder? She touched it and he pushed her away.

"The Queen is watching."

"Will she attack again?"

"Undoubtedly," Zeref responded. "We need to get into the library."

"Can she not reach us in there?"

"Nowhere is safe." He started out. His leg was stiff beneath him. Lucy was caught by Loke again before she could pursue. He no longer looked frightened. He looked dangerous and livid.

"Consider he lured us out here so we can die."

"What are you talking about?" She hoped Zeref's hearing wasn't half as good as Natsu's. She didn't want him to think they were ungrateful.

There was a spark in his eye that Lucy did not know. "He thinks you'll never be successful. He doesn't want his brother to be here alone. He's psychotic and has never needed a reason to hurt anyone, ever. And here we are, lams to his slaughter. We need to be careful around him. You used to know that."

"Maybe he was like that before but things are different now." She had to believe it.

"Then why didn't he tell us how dangerous the bog was?"

"There was no time. And he came back."

"Probably to kill us himself."

"Hurry," Zeref called from ahead. "You can squabble about my intentions after we find a way to save my brother."

Lucy's cheeks flamed. She closed her hand on Loke's arm and pulled him after Zeref.

The building materialized ahead. The light was still on inside; now the doors were cracked open in invitation.

* * *

In a field of poppies as red as blood drops, Natsu stepped over the emaciated bodies of addicts. They were in the ruff of the tall stems, moaning and suffering as Hell saw fit. Natsu burned any who dared touch him. He did not want to feel their burdens.

The Queen's presence settled around him like a thick miasma. The ground bulged like the cap of a grotesque mushroom and she stepped out of a sinkhole of bone, dressed in Lucy's clothes but no longer wearing her face. "You're wrecking my favourite flower field, tromping through like a gorilla."

"Should I burn it all down?" He waited for no answer. A thought and the stems were ash and dust, the sufferers, too.

She waved her hand and everything was as it was before, except the addicts were no longer _in_ the field, they were a part of it, the poppies growing from their fleshless bodies. "Lovely. They look better without their skin, don't they?"

He had not meant to please her. He dug his thumb into the fat part of his hand and breathed in charred flesh. "Leave me."

"Have you looked in your mirror lately?"

" _Leave_ me."

She stepped in front of him, stringy hair and rotting flesh, protruding bone. "Of course you haven't." Her voice started to change, mimicking Lucy's. "Because you're afraid the illusion to slip. Little Lucy's chest is going to," she grabbed the flesh around her breasts and pulled, revealing a hole where her heart should be. " _open_ up. And you'll know all of this was a lie. A ploy to get you to come out and play."

Natsu elbowed past her.

"What will you do if it isn't, though, Natsu? Leave Hell? You should know, I'll never let you. You're here to stay."

"You can't stop me."

"But I can stop Lucy."

"You won't touch her," he growled.

" _I can because she's mine_ ," she whispered in his ear with breath that smelled like fungus. Her skeletal fingers slid down his arm and took the mirror from him. He'd been gripping it so hard, it'd bitten through even his scales. She turned the image around for him so he could see the Athenaeum and Lucy. Lucy leaping from patch to patch of moss. "Remember when Zeref thought this place could be his? Remember when it rejected him and he barely made it out alive? Were you scared for him? And how mindless you must feel now, knowing that she's set on entering its halls."

"What have you done?" Natsu squeezed out. And was it a trick?

"You'll need to get there, I think." She started to sink back into the ground but paused halfway. "Oh. I suppose you may want this returned to you." The ground opened like a dark mouth and spit up a prize. Zeref shivered, torn and bleeding and gasping. He stunk of hellhound and was covered head-to-foot in thick, black blood, so much so that Natsu couldn't tell _where_ the damage was.

The blood rushed to Natsu's head. He razed the poppy room to the ground again. The Queen was gone when the dust fell but her laughter echoed around him.

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

Droplets of blood, small and bright, fell from Zeref's mouth and splattered on Hell's featureless ground. Small ghouls that took the form of shadows darted forward. When they disappeared again, the blood was only a licked at stain. Hell liked the way Zeref tasted. Hell liked them all.

Natsu ripped a strip off what was left of his shirt and wiped Zeref's face. Normally, Zeref would bat him away and do it himself, but he seemed to be too tired.

"How did you let her do this to you?" He sounded very accusatory.

Zeref opened one eye. It was cherry red around the white. "The Queen doesn't like that Lucy's in Hell or that I was helping her. She sent her dogs after me. Letting her take me was the easiest way to get her attention off Lucy."

Natsu shook his head. If this was real… "Why would she care about a single mortal girl, huh?"

"Because Lucy is trying to take away the one thing the Queen's been unable to. You."

The Queen of Bone was certainly vindictive enough to let this grudge propel her. But to _honestly believe_ Lucy was in Hell… He went along with it before because…

_Because you hoped she'd disappear?_

_Because you hoped it was_ true?

Both of those things? Was he really so cynical now? And what had his nihilism cost Lucy?

"Stop thinking so much," Zeref said. "It's not going to change the facts. Lucy's in Hell and she needs you, not me. So leave me and go to her."

There was a hot ball of anxiety in his throat. "I can't."

"You _can_ , Natsu."

"I can't go without you," he clarified. "I need you." To remind him that this was real. To keep him centred. "Can you stand?"

"Yeah," Zeref said after a moment. With help, he meant. Natsu clasped his forearm and lifted him up. Zeref leaned heavily on him, eyes closed. Black branches of magic came slinking from the ground. His one eye he let go completely black. His other wounds were pressed shut. They'd never heal but he could make them work. Soon, he'd be nothing but shadows. "Come on."

"To _where?"_.

"The _Athenaeum_."

"You almost didn't come back from there."

"The more reason to go. Lucy is carting my nephew into that Hell mouth." Zeref picked up the broken mirror like he suspected Natsu's coming argument and showed him an image that made his dead heart stop cold.

Lucy, Loke and something that _looked_ like Zeref marched towards the library entrance.

Lucy didn't seem to realize the danger she was in. She clutched her belly with one hand and Loke's wrist with the other and followed a devil into a pit of sorrows.

Natsu was paralyzed until Zeref shook him. "We need to go after her."

"What if it's another trick? It could be that none of this is real and the Queen's luring us into a trap."

"You know that's not true. We can stop this before she gets in too deep."

Zeref was right.

"Let's go." It used to be strange walking side-by-side with Zeref but Magnolia and all of the havoc he'd caused seemed very far away. Natsu helped him from the Queen's garden.

* * *

A small plant grew outside the _Athenaeum_ in droves. It was as red as a blood drop and its petals came to a delicate point as fine as a pinhead. And, as if they'd stepped into the royal gardens, there was a plaque of information stamped into a piece of stone beside the garden's steps.

_Bloodbayne. Partial to flame. Hellhound blood. Harvest every century for bigger blooms._

"I didn't know Hell cared about botanics so much," Loke muttered.

Behind them, the bog belched and bright blue light from the centre illuminated their surroundings.

"The Queen loves her theatrics," Zeref said with a sigh.

Loke looked back to the bog nervously. "That's her?"

"She's coming."

Lucy stepped in front of them both, eager to get inside.

"Not so fast," Loke protested.

"You heard Zeref, she's coming."

"We don't _know_ that! Like we don't know what's inside there!"

Lucy squeezed his hand. "We're almost done, Loke. We just have to figure out how to make Natsu a spirit and then we need to find him." And everything would be better.

"Then, the most important bit, we need to escape without drawing too much attention to ourselves," Loke added.

The blue light ballooned out and touched Lucy's face, kissed her cheeks. It was cold and wrong. Sunlight's dichotomy. It made every inch of her skin crawl.

Zeref looked like a skeleton in it. "Hurry."

Lucy took the door and pulled it back. She was greeted by darkness. Absolute and utter darkness. Things lived in its encompassing embrace. They breathed and shuffled their wings and whispered. Sweet things. Terrible things. Calling her into the dark. Into the night. Into…

_"Forever._ "

"Lucy." Loke's voice was a knife cutting her free. Laughter wobbled through the shadows.

"Don't let the door close until I say." Zeref stepped up into the building and light, brilliant and blinding, flooded the library. It was a cathedral-style building with mosaic floors and walls crafted from brimstone.

More wings fluttered, some faceless creature retreated. Its wingbeats ruffled the hair on what Lucy could only assume was the librarian. She sat in the centre of the room behind a desk of bone. She looked at herself in a bone-framed mirror and fixed stringy, patchy hair around her bony face.

She preened and keened, making herself look beautiful, and smiled like a ghoul when she pegged them with eyes that were milky white and sightless.

"Travellers." Her voice slithered out between broken teeth. "Step in, out of the cold."

Zeref held out his hand and twelve firefly demons emerged from the depths of the library. They blazed like stars.

"You're wiser, Demon King," the librarian whispered. "But that doesn't mean you're better."

"You can close the door, Lucy."

She pulled it shut on the blue light of the bog. All of the light in the library went out, too. The laughter was back and the wings. Then the fireflies burned brightly. Whatever had been coming for them screamed and fled the light.

Fireflies curled around Lucy's body. They still reminded her of Natsu, their flames felt almost warm.

"Never let the light go out," Zeref ordered.

"Okay."

"And don't let go of my brother's book," he told Loke.

"It's safe."

Zeref held his eyes in a deadlock stare. Lucy didn't have the patience for their posturing. She and her entourage of fireflies stepped deeper into the library.

The desk was gone. The skeleton was, too. Lucy waited to feel relief but there was only fear in her heart. Where did she go? Was she watching them?

Chilled to her core, Lucy nuzzled deeper into her coat, though it wasn't the kind of cold that could be fixed with layers.

"Wait for me." Loke caught up with her. He was scolding her but she wasn't listening.

The entrance funneled into a hallway dressed with horrific art, terrible images of human suffering. Wars and tortures and heartbreak.

Lucy looked away from most of the images but couldn't escape one at the end. A monster held a baby boy in between two clawed, scaly hands. The child was bent in half, spine avulsed. His blood dropped onto the face of his screaming mother.

Onto Lucy's face.

The demon turned in its painting and Lucy looked into Natsu's black eyes.

_"This is your forever."_

_"Your always."_

_"Your pain."_

Zeref took her shoulders and said quietly into her ear, "They'll try to break you. Be stronger than that." His breath was cold like death.

The demon masquerading as Natsu lifted the baby to his mouth and sucked the spine like it was a straw. Lucy swallowed down her revulsion. "This isn't real."

Zeref answered, "Not unless you want it to be."

She did _not_ and thought furiously, _Natsu_ would never do that to them. He loved her. He loved their baby. No matter what he said.

The demon in the painting faced forward again. Lucy walked past. She felt better with it behind her.

The hallway took her into a larger room. The fireflies glowed brighter, showing her what she was getting into. Lucy wished they hadn't.

Heads. Rows upon rows of heads relieved of their bodies. Men. Women. Children. Their eyes were closed.

"What is this?"

"Hell's library," Zeref said.

"Where are the _books_?"

"I don't know a book that owes penance, do you?"

She could cry.

"How does it work?" Loke asked, cool and calm and on task. She loved him and his sense of purpose.

"Like any library does. You find the aisle you need; pick the head you want; you ask it a question." He approached a child with curling onyx hair and pressed down on her chin. Her tongue lolled out and its surface was tattooed, _Queen of Bone_.

Zeref looked back at Lucy. His eyes glowed by the light of the fireflies. "Go ahead."

Lucy's tongue was stapled to the roof of her mouth.

"I will," Loke said. "What can you tell us about the Queen of Bone?"

Zeref let her go and the child began to speak.

"The Queen of Bone is no one's right hand. She is the head and the heart. The hungry stomach. She eats everything. She will take you, Lion, and she will consume all of you and you'll be part of something bigger. Something better.

"You'll forget who you are and what you love but you'll ask for it. You'll beg to be the one to tear the star open. You'll beg to be the one to hand over the babe. You'll look on in reverence while she consumes him and you'll be glad because you're broken. You need this. Because you know the celestial slut will cast you aside the first chance she gets. For the one she loves. A demon. A horrible demon. He'll kill her, you know it, Lion. It's in his nature. And you will let him because it is in yours. You—"

Loke's magic blazed, both light and dark. It hit the severed head with such force, there weren't even bone fragments left and it didn't even look like he felt horrible about it.

Zeref walked on through the rows with his head held high. Lucy didn't have his indifference.

"I guess I'm the star?" Was that her voice, small as a mouse's?

Loke touched her face; it took her a moment to realize he was swiping away tears. "I won't leave you, or rip you open for her, Natsu won't eat your baby, we _will_ leave, with or without her permission."

_You'll destroy half of Hell if you need to._ All of it, maybe, even.

"I found the section on magic." Zeref was nowhere in sight but his voice came from between the stacks. Lucy followed it and Loke followed her. One of her fireflies draped themselves on the end of a shelf and blazoned as she stepped into a row that smelled like rotten apples. The smell got worse the deeper she travelled; the floor got tacky, too.

_Blood_ , her thoughts screamed. _You're stepping through blood._ Lucy kept her eyes _up_. She did not need confirmation no matter _how_ grotesque.

"Zeref?" She couldn't see him.

"Down here." One of Zeref's snaky shadows coiled around her wrist and dragged her further along and didn't let go until she was standing next to him, looking at a section that read _Magia_. There were a lot of shelves.

"Down here first, I think," Zeref said and took the hallway directly ahead. Bodiless heads followed them with cloudy eyes. If Lucy looked at them too long, she imagined she could see storms in them. She did not like it.

Zeref stopped in front of a man with shaggy grey hair and opened his mouth. His tongue said _The Essence of Magic._ Then his eyes opened and Lucy recognized Hades.

"Tell us what you know of hellfire spirits."

His mouth moved in Zeref's hand. "Demons enslaved to human masters. Powerful but erratic."

"How do we _enslave_ one?" Zeref clarified.

Lucy didn't like that word. _Enslave._ "Contract. How do we contract one and fix his soul to the key?"

Hades' eyes fixated on her. "I never knew."

It was a dead end but it was something. "Thank you."

"You're going to die in here, Lucy Heartfilia. You're going to rot in Hell's Mouth, torn apart by a thousand little hands and faceless, screaming demons. The Abyss welcomes you."

Zeref let go of Hades and he went slack again. "There are more down here."

More faces with horrid little things to say. They rubbed Lucy raw and she could maybe, just _maybe_ , see how Zeref let it roll over him. They repeated variations of the same things. It stopped being shocking when a man older than Master Makarov told her that Soneillon was going to make her realize her hate for _everything_ and cut out her baby's heart.

She expected it.

Loke was less good at taking it on the chin. Sometimes, he'd destroy the heads, sometimes, he'd growl profanities at them. They'd laugh. Zeref would look on emotionlessly.

"This way." Down an aisle that read, _Demonology._ Zeref went left and Loke followed. Lucy hesitated, looking down the hallway at golden curls. It was Heartfilia gold. The fireflies followed her and she found she _could_ be shocked still.

Layla Heartfilia's face was exactly how Lucy remembered it. Death kept her young. Hell kept her forever.

Lucy dreaded touching her. Her skin was soft and warm, though, like someone alive. Her eyes opened and rested on Lucy, blank and dead. Her mouth opened, too, and on it was _Forbidden Magic_. "Mom?"

"Lucy." She seemed to have no trouble recognizing her, though there were many, many years between them.

"God. What are you doing here?"

"Atoning."

"For _what_?" Layla Heartfilia was a _good person_. No one could tell her differently.

"I partnered with the Demon King. I tampered with forbidden magic. I ripped a hole in time and brought the past to the present. This is my sacrifice."

All great magic required them. "But you were helping people. You were trying to make things _right._ This isn't fair. You shouldn't be here."

Layla was quiet and Lucy realized that she needed to ask a question. That's how the library worked. "Tell me how to get you out of here."

Layla's mouth opened but it wasn't her that spoke.

"You're a greedy girl, Lucy Heartfilia."

Lucy spun a circle but saw no one.

"You want everything and you never want to let anyone go. You think you can come in here and upset the balance and dart out again without giving a single thing. I like you. You're ambitious."

"Show yourself."

One of the fireflies extinguished

"Don't let the lights go out," Zeref had said but he didn't tell her what would happen if she failed.

"Nothing is free," that detached voice said. "Though I'm more than happy to tell you what escaping with your life will cost."

Wings bore down on her from the top shelf. Lucy protected her face; it wasn't her it was after, though. Another firefly went out. "Stop!"

_"No_."

Lucy yanked her whip out and hunted for the hunter. It was a black blotch, a shadow in a sea of them. "Show yourself!"

Wings fluttered and her fireflies dodged with a squeak; their light faltered. Lucy twirled in a circle, whip raised. She met nothing. Nothing had her, though, and took out the final two fireflies in one fell swoop.

There were blackness and silence, her breath, her heart hammering in a chest that felt too small.

"Loke?" Her voice travelled nowhere.

" _You're all alone_."

"Zeref?"

Something scraped.

"Anyone?" Lucy pleaded.

A familiar rattle answered her call. Bone. So much bone. The smell was in the air, decay.

" _Lucy_ ," sing-songed an unfamiliar voice. " _Lucy. Lucy. Lucy."_

Each whisper was closer until Lucy felt cold breath in her ear, felt bony hands on her shoulders. She whipped around.

Blackness.

"You've lost your spirit. You've lost your guide. Even your lover has abandoned you. He said he's going to come for you but that was a lie so you'd stop tormenting him," whispered the black.

"You don't know Natsu," she said vehemently.

" _You_ don't know _End_."

Lucy flung her whip. Her magic sputtered. A skeletal face appeared in the blue light. Dead eyes, skinless mouth, rotten teeth. So close.

The light went out. Lucy skittered back and flung her whip again. This time, she saw Natsu. "She's right. I am a liar, Lucy."

"You're not."

"And you are selfish."

"Shut up, Natsu."

"If you loved me, you'd leave my book and climb out of Hell again, and you'd never look back."

"No."

"This is where I belong."

"Stop it! Stop pretending to be him, stop trying to scare me!" she snapped. "I'm not afraid of you."

Natsu's face got flat and lifeless. "You know my terms. Obey them and I'll stop."

"I would rather die."

"That can _certainly_ be arranged."

* * *

The fireflies sputtered and a cold crept across the ground, freezing Loke's toes through his boots. He walked through a spider web strung between the two stacks, and then through a fog that came from nowhere that he could identify but was all around them.

"What is this stuff?"

Zeref chose not to answer him. He slowed at a head of long hair so white, it was nearly translucent.

_Demon Mother_ , her tongue said, and Loke could overlook Zeref's coldness because he knew she had their answers. "Demon Mother. How do you make a hellfire spirit?"

Her eyes opened and they were off-yellow. Dandelions gone to rot. "Blood and pain. Cut the demon with the Queen's knife. Soak the key in his strife. But to call him day by day, Hell requires the balance be paid."

"What balance?" Loke asked.

Zeref said, "Isn't it obvious? A life for a life. Natsu can't leave unless someone takes his place."

Loke looked to see what Lucy thought of it all and felt his heart drop. "Lucy?"

Zeref spun, too. "Lucy?"

_She's gone and she's never coming back. Hell's taken her._

Loke thrust the poisoned thoughts aside. " _Lucy!_ " He stumbled to the end of the row and pushed off from a gargoyle statue. "Lucy!"

Rock ground together behind him. _Don't look,_ Loke thought furiously. _Don't look_.

The rafters shook and a cold wind buffeted his face. _Don't look_.

Cold hands closed on his shoulders and reached for Natsu's book.

_Don't. Don't look_.

" _Run_ ," Zeref's voice was a weak whisper in his ear.

The fingers tightened. Loke thrashed, trying to shake them, but in the end, had to ditch his jacket to get away. Something inhuman screamed and every single head in the library it seemed, joined in. A massive cold front whipped through the library's halls. One of Loke's fireflies went out. And then they all got dark.

"Lucy!" His voice was lost in the noise. He tried again. "Lucy! Where are you?"

It was so dark; he could see nothing. He reached for his magic and the floor sparked in front of him and Loke saw a pair of black boots. Pale legs. A black skirt. A tattered shirt. A body, coils of hair hanging over thin shoulders. He stopped there. He did not want to see her face; it would torment him.

Hell got eerily quiet.

"Loke." She always said his name in the same way.

"Get away from me." She wasn't real.

She touched his chest, stalling him in his tracks. "I can't. I love you."

"You don't." He knew that.

"And you love me."

"No."

"You keep me safe."

" _No_." He only had one charge.

"You're very loyal." She stepped closer; Loke closed his eyes. She took his hand and put it on her face. Her skin was smooth and her lashes tickled his fingertips. She did feel real. A girl and not a monster. "But I'll take care of you. I'll love you. Just give me End's book, Loke."

There was a special place in Hell for betrayers and that was by the Queen's side.

"You tried to drown me." He'd never forget the feel of the River of Forgetting sliding down his throat, into his lungs and choking him on memories.

"I tried to _free_ you. You know it's true. She doesn't appreciate you. Not like I will."

She stepped closer again. He could feel her body against his and he could keep his eyes closed no longer. The imposter was an exact replica, right down to her ruby heart-shaped earrings.

"If you can't give me End's book then just open it, Loke."

_Open it. Open it. Open it._

Her suggestion stuck in his head like a knife in an apple.

_Open it._

But to do that, he'd have to betray Lucy.

Natsu's book throbbed in Loke's hands and he felt his magic taint. He welcomed it; it pushed the Handmaiden back with so much force, it burned her skin and half of her face. She fell to the ground like a lifeless doll, her hair a limp fan around her head. Loke didn't look into her amber eyes. Couldn't. Just in case she caught him again.

He started running. Hell went back to screaming. There was something on his heels, hooves and wings and terrors.

"Lucy!" Loke looked down the hallways but all he saw was bleak faces without bodies, cobwebs and eyes that peered out of the dark, red like blood and austere like death.

* * *

Natsu had his foot extended to take him across an island in the bog when his world turned upside down and he was suddenly looking inside the library without _being_ inside it.

Being a demon had its ups and downs. Up—most of Hell was frightened of him. Down—most of Hell was frightened of him. The only demons that _really_ hung around him were the faeries and he suspected it was only because they liked the way his fire tasted. They drank it up like parched soil.

It was a bit of a symbiosis, though.

Once, back near the time they'd first gotten to Hell, Natsu closed his eyes, not awake, not asleep, and watched Zeref get lifted by a water demon and thrown against the ground. Natsu heard his ankle snap audibly though Zeref was by the mouth of the River of Forgetting and Natsu was in his cave, a world away. Then Zeref got up and picked apart the demon limb by limb.

Natsu forgot about it until Zeref stumbled back to his cave sometime later, blanched and covered in blood and actually very broken, trailing an entourage of firefly faeries.

He didn't put the pieces together immediately. That came sometime later when he was experiencing another peculiar dream. Zeref was being tormented by the Queen of Bone. She turned into people he'd loved, and when he went to them, they'd rot and fall apart in his hands, bone and dust.

He got so angry, the entire world turned black, Hell was lightless and desolate, and the Queen was laughing because in the black corners was where she thrived. She gnawed him mercilessly. Natsu was furious. And then a small fire sputtered to life, and several more, too. Natsu reached through the faeries and thought _burn_ and then the Queen _was_ and her laughter had turned to screams. She disappeared.

Natsu never asked Zeref about it; there was something about peering into such a personal moment, seeing someone's desires first hand, and then watching them get snatched away. Something brutal and uncomfortable.

The visions came and went sporadically, usually if his fireflies had been feeding well. Normally, he'd push it aside; he didn't need to see _more_ of Hell, but just then, he couldn't look away from the inside of the library. Lucy was running and the light of her whip was guiding her way, just barely.

She zagged around stacks of heads and looked back over her shoulder so often, he was afraid she would fall. Something large and black chased her on leather wings, nipping at her heels and growling. Her breaths wheezed in Natsu's ear like she was _right there_. He could smell her. Sweat and fear and Lucy. _Lucy_.

Another beast appeared ahead of her. She was on a collision course and didn't even know it. And wouldn't until she was racing merrily into its maw, getting chewed into bits and pieces.

An abyss opened in Natsu's chest and all across the library, fireflies sparked and glowed and burned out the night. The creature that was trying to swallow Lucy burned up, the one at her back, too.

Someone appeared in front of her and Natsu almost razed him, too, but he recognized Loke last-second and stayed his hand.

Loke took Lucy by the elbow with one hand, the other was wrapped around a thick tome that sometimes haunted Natsu when he wasn't careful and let himself think of the _what if's_. _What if Zeref never brought me back, or what if Zeref destroyed the book. What if I never loved him and let him rot, alive, forever?_

" _Natsu_." Zeref grabbed his shoulder and wrenched him out of the vision. Natsu blinked. There were cold, clammy hands on his ankle, trying to drag him down into the River of Forgetting. The Gleaner watched a short distance away, her persimmon eyes greedy and eager, just above the waterline.

Everyone wanted a piece of him.

Natsu burned the corpse to ash with a thought. "We need to hurry. The Queen of Bone's found her."

Or, more accurately, Lucy had found the Queen of Bone.

 


	13. Chapter 13

Fire crackled at Lucy's feet and she wanted to stay and watch it rage through the library, eating everything it touched, wanted to feel its heat. But Loke wouldn't let her. He had a destination in mind and nothing could slow him down.

The end of the hallway appeared and there was a door. Loke smashed through it, barely stopping to turn the handle. They entered a large and crowded ovate room, at the centre of which was a black scintillating pool with some kind of monster burbling below the surface. On occasion, a fin would pop up and shimmer, scales and leather, then a thick tentacle. Then it was gone again. There was a light glowing above it, cool and orange and pink, like a winter morning. It was hypnotising, bouncing off a black marble floor so polished, the stalactites and roots that dangled above them reflected.

Music. It swelled in eerie, harmonic notes, flutes and ukuleles and drums, played by creatures of various shapes and sizes, some with horns and some with misshapen heads and dead eyes, some with scales and blunt teeth, some with maws that looked like a shark's, rows and rows and rows of needles meant to tear flesh and pierce bone. They occupied the air and the ground and the ceiling, too, and the places between, the shadows, the incorporeal hollows.

It was a party. Laughter surrounded them, rough like gravel, and the beat of wings. The sound made Lucy's skin hot and tight. Everything was suddenly uncomfortable. The baby in her belly wriggled as if in agreement. She shrunk back against the door, trying to sink out of sight. The door vanished into a blank brimstone wall. There was no way out.

Her panic settled over her like a shroud but when she turned, no one (no _thing_ ) was looking at her. Not like they didn't notice her, because sometimes their eyes would slide over her, but like they didn't care she was there.

She had time to think while creatures (demons?) danced around a coffin made of thorns, displayed on a pedestal that sat on a rocky island in the centre of the glowing pond. There was only one way to get to it, and that was across a stone walkway.

Lucy couldn't see who was inside but thought she wouldn't like it very much.

"Where is Zeref?"

Loke shot her a warning look.

Lucy said, "Don't look at me like that. They know we're here but they don't care."

Of course, he saw the same thing she did, beasties dancing and screaming and laughing. Beasties ignoring them. He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the cover of an elaborately carved brimstone pillar. The images of human suffering looked out at her. Loke's eyes took in everything, skimming from one end of the cathedral-style room to the other. Sweat beaded his brow though it was just as cold here as it was everywhere else in Hell.

_Except in the library, for that brief moment when I felt Natsu's fire,_ Lucy thought and shivered with pleasure.

Loke squeezed her arms tight. "This was a mistake. We need to get out of here."

"The door is gone; in case you didn't notice."

"There has to be another way."

"Maybe, but I think we should wait here."

He looked at her like she'd gone mad. "What? Why?"

"So Natsu can find us. Now, _where is Zeref_?"

"I don't know," he said and looked helpless. "We were attacked in the library. He told me to run and I did. I don't know what happened to him afterwards."

"You left him."

"I had no choice," he ground out. Lucy didn't know Loke when he was like this, at his wit's end and scared. He looked desperate and desperate people did desperate things. "You weren't there and I needed to find you."

A beautiful demon with ram horns and eagle's claws for nails swung by them in a dress made of spider's silk and a necklace of bone. Her eyes were amethyst, blank, maybe blind, and when she smiled, her teeth were little diamonds, sharp and hard-looking.

"Dance with us, Lion." She touched Loke's arm and he looked like he'd been electrocuted. "Dance with us until the prince arrives."

_She means Natsu_ , Lucy thought with a start and all of the blood rushed to her head. _He's really coming for us_.

"Get off me." Loke shook her off and clutched Natsu's book tighter to his chest. She drifted off like dandelion fluff caught in a spring breeze. "This is crazy. One minute, they're trying to kill us and the next, they want to dance? Lucy, they're sundews." Sticky sweet until the fly landed, and then they closed and digest them alive.

"Or maybe they're different here?" she said hopefully. "Maybe they're friends of Natsu's." The demon prince.

Loke shook his head. "This place isn't right."

And she knew what he meant, it had the aura of an opium den. Everyone here was part of a frenzied dream inside a quiet and dangerous place.

A blue blur soared past them stinking of ocean water and then Loke was gone. Lucy held her breath, startled, and looked around the pillar, ready to fight. Loke had been bullied out into the open with crowd. The light from above touched on him and he glowed like he hadn't since they left the surface, he looked like what he was, a star torn from the sky. A star being swung around and around by a demon.

She was even more dangerously beautiful than the last. Her skirt was layered leaves, wet and dripping. She was bare from the waist up and her skin was delicately blue, like chicory flower. Her hair was an ocean wave. She wrapped around Loke and spun him like this really was a celebration and he was the guest of honour, around and around and around, her head back and her hands on his shoulders. Loke clutched Natsu's book dazedly like he wasn't quite sure what happened or how to make it _un-_ happen.

"Dance with me, Lucy of the Living, while we wait for the prince?"

Lucy turned. Another demon. Another beautiful. He had eyes the colour of storms, slit pupils, a smile that looked like it'd been carved with a razor blade. He looked at her through hair dark like coal and offered her a hand like a lizard's.

She couldn't say why she accepted. It was automatic, reaching back for him. His skin was cold like snow, and felt wet like it, too. He took her around the waist and she felt some magic take deep, deep root in her. Her heart swelled and the music dug into her head and she had to move. She had to dance, though demons were watching her in earnest now, a thousand little eyes hard and cold and cruel, a thousand smiles cutting up across cheeks. A thousand bodies that reached for her and passed her back and forth to beasts with claws and beasts with hooves and beasts with tentacles. Everyone touched her because everyone wanted to touch the prince's lover, which was nothing anyone said, but Lucy knew, she knew like she knew that Hell was always cold, like she knew the sky was blue, like she knew that now that she'd started, she would dance until she died.

A stout demon with yellow skin, silver eyes and long, polished black horns scrambled up onto a piece of brimstone that jutted out from the wall. He had a chalice in his bony hand that splashed some green liquid onto the rock. It sizzled.

Demons looked his way and cheered. One said, "Give us a poem, Zo."

"Tell us a tale."

Zo took a deep swig and cleared his throat. His voice was strong and clear and otherworldly.

"His lover is here

And she's a bit queer,

A little stick of a girl,

With a baby in her oven

She's a little glutton,

Trying to take what the Queen has claimed

But she's sidled up beside her,

A horrible little spider,

And will gut her from stem to stern."

Laughter. Bitter and raucous.

Hands turned tight on Lucy's arms and her skin split in places. She was dancing with a creature that looked like it'd crawled from the deep now, its eyes so large, its teeth so long and so sharp-looking, Lucy was afraid. So afraid. She couldn't stop dancing, though. Couldn't. Couldn't. Couldn't. She was going to be sick, she was spinning so much. She tried to find Loke. She needed help. But she couldn't see him.

"Please. I need to stop."

"No." A new demon had taken her up. Female, with bones in her stringy black hair and black in her eyes and bones peeping out between gashes in her skin. "No, Lucy Heartfilia. You will move until your muscles tear from your bones, until your feet blister and your body aborts your disgusting little creature, and then you will die, bleeding on my floor, watching as I slice you open and tear apart your favourite part of you."

_The Queen,_ Lucy thought frantically and lurched back. Her heels met with open air and then she was falling. Cold, icy water closed over her head and blocked out the music and she could think again. She could do something other than dance.

Swim, perhaps. Swim because there was a thing in this water and it was gripping her ankles and trying to drag her down.

She kicked her feet ineffectually. It was too cold; her muscles were stiff.

Something else grabbed her arm and wrenched. She'd hoped it was Loke but she looked into two orange-yellow eyes, strange and ancient. Lucy screamed all of the air from her lungs and writhed to get away but couldn't.

She was pulled up, up, up from the depths, out of the grasp of whatever was below, and then air broke across her face, and music filled her ears and laughter. She was dropped onto a slab of brimstone in the centre of the pond. With the coffin, she realized. The thorns dug into her back.

The thing that had pulled her out sank back below the surface before she could get a great look at it. Lucy pulled away and sagged against the coffin, unable to hold herself very straight. The lid was glass and she could see inside. Her heart stopped. Here was Zeref. He wasn't the same Zeref that saved her from the bog, though. His ankle looked badly bent and his knuckles were torn up, but where were the all of the other injuries? The only thing that was immediately wrong with him was a bone-handled knife stabbed through his chest. He was the pallor of death; his hands were latticed on his chest. His nailbeds were blue.

Light shone on the wall opposite and the door appeared again. It burst open with the force of a storm and suddenly, Natsu was there. _Her_ Natsu. The real one. She could feel his heat and his ire and her heart swelled.

The music stopped and all eyes turned Natsu's way. He took in the room with a quickness that was totally unsettling.

Every living thing in the room, as far as Lucy could tell, bowed their heads and slunk back to whatever knoll they came from, disappearing like smoke in the night sky. The only things to say they'd really been there at all was the instruments and chalices left behind. The air stunk like freshly spilled wine, like blood.

Lucy looked at Natsu and after a moment, Natsu lifted his eyes and looked at her and for the first time in months, she felt alive but had no idea of what to do with that feeling. Study his coiling horns as they eased back from his temples into his hair, marvel at his sharp-scaled skin, shiver at his inhuman hands, his claws, the colour of ashes and burnished gold. Her dreams hadn't done him justice, there was a veil of unreality between them during those nighttime hours. It was gone now and he was even more beautiful than she remembered.

"There is a body that looks like Zeref in that coffin."

Lucy had almost forgotten about Loke. He stood by the pool, bathed in the iridescent light, looking mauled and discombobulated. His shirt was ripped open and his left pant leg was torn and he was bleeding shallowly from one long, shallow cut on his chest.

Natsu glanced at the Zeref beside him as if for an answer but Zeref said nothing. Natsu asked something absurd then. "Where is Zeref?"

Lucy curled up her nose. "There, behind—"

"Not _that_ Zeref. The one you came in with?"

Lucy looked between Natsu and Zeref and Zeref in the coffin. She didn't feel smart enough for this puzzle.

"He was an imposter," Natsu clarified. "Made up by the Queen of Bone to get you here to her _Athenaeum_ _. So she could kill you."_

_Lucy started to shake her head before he finished speaking. "He was helping us."_

_"_ _Die," Natsu spat it out like it was a filthy word, like he was angry with her for coming here, and Lucy's eyes burned with tears._

_"_ _He saved me in the library," Loke surprised her by saying. "Maybe your Zeref is the fake."_

_Natsu's fingers bunched into a fist and out again. He turned on Zeref and looked him over and Zeref looked back. One of his eyes were completely back and it was so unnerving._

_Then the door opened and the other Zeref, Lucy's Zeref, stumbled in, trailing smoke and shadow and the essence of fear. It clung to him._

_He sized up the situation efficiently. "Get away from him, Natsu. He's a fake."_

_"_ _That's not true. The Queen of Bone spat me up after her hellhounds took me from Lucy. I'm real," said the Zeref Natsu had arrived with._

_Natsu clutched his temples and closed his eyes like he could squish everything out of his head. His muscles bunched; he was so much stronger now, Lucy thought. Hell had changed him in ways she hadn't appreciated before, even when he'd strip down for her and touch her. Having him_ _here,_ _really, really_ _here_ _, made all the difference. She could study his scars in the changing light the way she couldn't when they were rushing against dream, she could memorize the new hardness to his eyes, the way his once-smiling mouth was flat and wary. Where was his laughter? Her heart ached for him but she was not sad, not greedy Lucy. The most important thing was that he was here and he was here for_ _her._

_Natsu stood straight and a dangerous calm fell over him. Lucy shivered again. Loke took her arm and pulled her back a foot, two, and she let him because she'd only seen_ _this_ _Natsu once. It was the same Natsu that burned Zeref and him alive on the steps of Kardia Cathedral._

_His magic was a poisoned cloud coming into his hands. He burned with it and she saw a beast in the flickering gold of his flames. The beast Zeref had created._

_He let the fire go and it spread across the room like it was moving through dry wheat grass. Instruments turned to ash, blood and wine evaporated, and both Zerefs burned alive. It took less than a second, they didn't even have time to scream, but Lucy memorized the looks on their faces. Identical horror and betrayal. And then they were gone._

_Smoke wended to the ceiling and spread in soft, grey pillows._

_Lucy staggered from the stones in the pond. Something below the surface watched her. Maybe the thing with the orange eyes. Maybe the thing with the tentacles. Nothing grabbed her. "What did you do? Natsu? Why? Why did you do that? He was helping us. He was helping_ _me_ _."_

His fires quieted and he was Natsu once more. "They both were frauds."

"How do you know?"

"They smelled the same," he said eventually. "And the Zeref in the coffin smells different." He avoided her gaze when he turned towards the pond. He tried to cross the stones but a massive tentacle leapt up and slapped him back. He went rigid like he'd been turned to stone and fell. The tentacle started to wrap around his foot and drag him towards the water. Lucy yelled and grabbed him by the arms, pulling him away. Loke used his magic and black-tainted light cut into the appendage. Blood spurted out, thick and grey and the tentacle disappeared into the water once more.

The ground shivered and started to change. No longer was it tile, it was piles of bones, desiccated and rotting and stinking. The party room was starting to look like a prison, grey except for the light above the pool.

Lucy tugged Natsu back and back and back through the graveyard and it was surreal touching him, but she couldn't focus on that just yet. Her back bumped into the pillar she'd hidden behind and her legs gave out. She pulled Natsu to her chest as best she could and glared confrontationally around the room. It was just her and Loke and Natsu and Zeref in the coffin, not moving, not even breathing.

Natsu jerked like lightning shot through him and gasped awake.

"Are you okay?" Lucy asked.

Natsu writhed in her arms like a stray dog forced into a confined space and didn't stop until she released him. He turned on her and his eyes were dangerous, but behind the danger was her Natsu. And he was hunting for his Lucy.

"I'm really here," she said gently and reached for him. He allowed her fingers to rest on his partially scaled cheek and then he turned his nose against her wrist and sniffed just like the dog she'd likened him to. His eyes got hooded and he breathed again, deeper, and it was just a strange and intimate thing. Such a _Natsu_ thing. Her heart cracked all over again and tears spilled from her eyes and nothing was right and nothing was okay and they were stuck in this room with a creature living in the pool and the Queen of Bone was probably watching them and Zeref, maybe the real Zeref or maybe the fake, was pinned like a fairy tale King, stuck in a death-like slumber, but all she could do was cry like the world wasn't on fire.

Lucy linked their fingers and didn't care that his scales bit into her or that his claws scraped her.

"You really are here," Natsu sounded like a man in a dream. "Why? Why the _hell_ are you in Hell?" He was back to sounding angry. "You shouldn't have come here, Lucy."

"I couldn't leave you." It was unthinkable. She looked at him and there were a million things she wanted to say. She'd imagined this moment so many times, she'd lost count, but now her thoughts were all bungled up and her words wouldn't come.

Natsu glared back over his shoulder like he was going to scold Loke, too, but Loke's back was to them and he was staring down at the pool as if he was looking at something telling.

It would do no good to tell him to be careful; Loke knew the stakes now.

Natsu sighed and stood. He still would barely look at her and when he did, he glanced at her eyes, and then at her belly and his mouth would get tight. "She knows we're here. She's probably watching us now and plotting. We need to get out."

"The door is gone again," Lucy noted and got to her feet. "Are you okay after that thing grabbed you?"

"Fine," Natsu said distractedly and pushed on the wall where he'd come in. It was unyielding. He used his magic and tried burning it. He singed the wall from floor to ceiling but that was all. "Fuck."

"It's okay. We'll think of another way."

Natsu faced the coffin again and his expression was death-grim. "I don't think there is another way."

"How do you know?"

"Because if there was, Zeref would have found it." He pressed in on his temples again, looking hopelessly frustrated.

"I don't understand what's going on," Lucy said. "Tell me."

"Zeref is—was—always hunting in Hell. He couldn't stop. He killed demons before they could kill him. He found this place and asked me to come with him. I didn't want anything to do with it and let him come on his own. He was gone for a long time. I thought he was just on a killing spree, he did that sometimes, but when he came back he told me about the _Athenaeum_ and the Queen of Bone and all the horrors inside. He said he almost didn't escape." He glared accusingly at the coffin. "Looks like that was another of the Queen's lies. He never left." Tongues of fire licked off his skin. It hurt to be even this close to him but Lucy couldn't turn away. She felt like a plant kept in the shade for too long and Natsu was the sun. It was a terrifying thing but she thought she might actually be happy to burn alive.

He asked the ceiling. "Is this it, Queen? You have me where you want me. Now what?"

"Now we don't challenge the Queen of Bone and figure out how to get that knife out of Zeref's chest," Loke spoke up. He still stood by the water's edge. "That's the key."

Lucy asked, "To what?"

"Everything. It's what's keeping Zeref like he is, it's what we need to bind Natsu to his key."

For the first time since beginning this journey, Lucy considered how Natsu felt about potentially being a spirit, bound to her. What if he didn't like the idea? What if he refused? She glanced sidelong at him. His face was a mask.

_Don't doubt yourself. Even Zeref wanted us to be together._

Or was that the Queen of Bone simply speaking through her Zeref imposter, corralling them here like cattle to an abattoir?

_She wasn't working through him when he left the book on the church steps,_ Lucy thought.

Loke said, "Before we were attacked, I found a head called Demon Mother. She told us how to do it."

"What did she say?" Lucy asked eagerly.

"Cut the demon with the Queen's knife. Soak the key in his strife."

"That's it?"

"When I get close to it, the water roils and Natsu was just attacked. Seems like a big fucking barrier to me," Loke muttered.

"I can get across," Lucy said. "I did it." Twice. She _fell_ in the water and she was grabbed by something in the deep, yeah, but something saved her, too. And she crossed the stones again without being attacked.

"Charybdis is down there," Natsu said.

"What is that?"

"A monster," Natsu said with an impatient wave of his clawed hands. "Teeth. Lots and lots of teeth. And tentacles and certain death."

"You're dead already," Lucy pointed out.

"There are places you can go that are worse than Hell. And, _you're_ not dead yet." His tone was daring her to challenge his observation. What would he do if she said _guess what, I'm here for good_?

Probably ruin everything in Hell. Then her for being so careless. After all, blindly running into things without a thought to consequences was _his_ job.

"I can do it," Lucy said gently. "I can get across."

"You can't because I won't let you."

"It's my choice."

Natsu looked at her middle and his knuckles got white. "It's _not_ for you alone to decide." _Not anymore_ , _not with how you are now_ , went unspoken and though she was mad at him for being so stubborn, she was also pleased. He did care about the baby. The Queen with all of her nasty tricks was wrong. Natsu wouldn't hurt them, just like she thought.

Natsu threw himself against the wall and dropped to the ground, arms resting on his knees and his head on his forearms. He looked sullen and traded between glaring at the twin piles that had been imposters of his brother and glaring at Lucy.

She sidled up to him like she was getting close to an agitated wasp and settled down beside him. Loke turned from them and went back to staring into the pool with his arms crossed over his chest.

"I missed you."

He turned so he could look at her but didn't take his head off his arms. "You've changed."

"Not so much."

"You're reckless now."

"Brave," she contradicted.

"Is that what you call it?"

"It's what people called it when you did stupid stuff like this."

His mouth twitched. Almost a smile. It disappeared. Lucy wriggled her arm between his chest and his leg and took his hand. Gods, his scales were sharp.

"You shouldn't touch me. I'll hurt you."

"You won't." She kissed him. He tasted like wild magic and Hell's secrets. He was reluctantly kissing her back and she could practically see his thoughts, he was thinking about Loke and he was thinking about the Queen and he was thinking about his brother in a coffin, stabbed through the heart. The truth was, Lucy didn't care about any of that stuff. Not then. She wanted to be kissed and she wanted to be kissed proper and she would not stop until he reciprocated.

Using her free hand, Lucy touched his cheek and pulled him closer. Her other hand she used to pull his arms apart, to wrap it around her back. He unfolded and tightened his hand on her back. Finally. Finally. And he kissed her right.

* * *

Loke focused on the pool and pretended he couldn't hear Lucy encouraging Natsu to touch her, to kiss her. The room wasn't very big and there was next to no privacy. He dug the corner of End's book into his palm until the pain was almost too much.

The pool bubbled like a tar pit and the Gleaner emerged, maggoty lips, dead-looking skin and fingernails like rotting claws. She found one of the stepping stones and leaned against it like an ugly mermaid coming up to sun.

"Lion. Oh, Lion. You're in trouble now. How will you get out of the _Athenaeum_ _?_ " Her voice was hardly a whisper.

Loke glanced back over his shoulder. There was a pillar between him and Lucy but he could see her and Natsu's fingers intertwined. He could hear her soft sigh. She was lost in her own world, and Natsu was, too, apparently. "One thing at a time. We need that knife first."

How wise was it to tell the Gleaner of their intention? But the Queen must have known. This was her place, after all, and they hadn't been very subtle about their intentions in the library. She knew what they were after. Which was why, maybe, Zeref was left for them here, the knife sticking out of his chest. Temptation.

"If you step over this water, Charybdis will destroy you, rip you limb from limb and it won't be Hell for you. You'll go somewhere special like the rest of us that die here."

"How are you in the water, then?"

"All of the River of Forgetting is mine, don't forget. I share with beasties because it's the kindly thing to do."

She did not seem kindly.

"Lucy swam in the water and stepped over the stones."

"Because I let her."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because she will be the one to give me what I want."

"One of Natsu's memories."

"The price of getting across again."

"That was your price when we wanted to find Natsu. Now we have him and we didn't need a thing from you."

"This is different, Lion. The Queen of Bone stands in your way. Your goal is within reach, but you will not get it."

And damn it all, he believed her. "You can't do this."

"Who will stop me?"

He didn't know.

"Take my offer to the Prince's paramour. See what she has to say about it."

She slipped out of sight then, back into the burbling water. Above, Zeref did not stir, and behind Loke, Lucy whispered secrets in Natsu's ears. He tried not to think about the sound of her voice, syrup and bitters, he tried and tried and tried not to think about heart earrings and hands pressed against brimstone and laughter so dark, it haunted even his waking mind.

Hell sought to break him. Sometimes, he wanted to let it.

 


	14. Chapter 14

The only way Loke could track time was by the pulsing and fading of the light over the pool and the _drip, drip, drip_ of condensed water sliding from the pointed tips of stalactites and leaving puddles on the bone-strewn floor. Piles and piles like dust collected beneath beds.

He thought an hour had passed. Maybe two.

He tried not to look Lucy's way and occupied himself with the mystery of Zeref. But it was difficult. Lucy's pleasure was his pleasure; he could feel everything. Emotional and physical, and it was distracting. Lucy was euphoric and blissful. She was so happy she could die. It was difficult to keep her thoughts and feelings out of his head before Natsu's return, but now it was near impossible. It was all he could think. He felt like standing in the centre of their cell and screaming in euphoria. He felt like crying. He felt like doing nothing. Like standing there and letting whatever was going to come, come because _this_ was okay.

Lucy's thoughts.

Nothing was okay.

Not that she'd know it. She and Natsu were dead to the world, so entranced with one another that everything else could be on fire and they wouldn't know it. That was until the light over the pool started changing, turning a sick plum purple and getting dark. Then they emerged from around the pillar, hair and clothes rumpled and messy.

"What's happening?" Lucy asked Natsu like he had all the answers in Hell. He shook his head, unknowing.

"I think it's the Gleaner." Loke had been hunting for ways to broach the subject and hadn't found anyway delicate.

"The what?" Lucy asked and Natsu snapped to attention.

"One of Hell's denizens. She's here?" Natsu looked at Loke.

"She's been following us since we arrived," Loke admitted. "At first, I thought it was about…" He held up Natsu's book for examination and Natsu's eyes got wide. "But she keeps trying to make deals with me."

"Why are you carrying around that book?" Natsu said.

Loke thought of where else he'd put it: the celestial realm, where it'd rotted Karen's graveyard, the celestial realm where he awaited extradition if he went back. The celestial realm, where he felt trapped. Where he felt free. "I have to."

"You're going to attract everything from every corner of Hell."

For the first time Loke could remember, Natsu looked scared. It very literally was his life in that book, he supposed. Anyone could take it, snuff him out completely, or figure out a way to rewrite it, take away his free will. They could tear a page and erase a part of him. _And you're swinging it around like it's nothing._ It was more powerful than his gate key, it had more destructive potential.

He didn't feel worthy of holding it. He couldn't bear to give it up either, though, like it was thorned and they'd dug into his skin. Any sudden movements and it'd tear him open. He needed to hold it and to hold it close, or else.

"It's safe."

"It's safe _destroyed_ ," Natsu said. Lucy's knuckles went white on his arm and he seemed to remember himself. He looked abashed, referring to his suicide so casually. A few months had passed and he'd forgotten how to do the only thing he was brought back to life to do: live for others. Loke felt sympathy for him then in a way he hadn't expected. Being a Hellfire spirit would be different than being a celestial. Returning to the celestial realm was relaxing, or it used to be. But here in Hell, did Natsu ever get to know peace? Or would he spend his time tearing through beasts until Lucy called on him again? _Were they condemning him to an eternity of torment?_

Natsu said, "The Gleaner feeds on memories. What did she offer and what does she want?"

Loke was grateful for something else to think about. "She offered a way to get across to Zeref. She wants one of _your_ memories."

The way Natsu looked at him spoke of months and months of the same sort of thing. A buffet for Hell's horrors.

Loke asked, "She's approached you before?"

"She _always_ tries to find me in a situation that seemed impossible without her help."

"You've always gotten out before," Lucy said, like Natsu got out of _every_ situation that was unfavourable.

"I was never in the _Athenaeum_ before."

"It can't be that bad. We'll just fight our way out. Like we always do."

Loke didn't like that idea any better than Natsu did. They'd put a lot of pressure on Lucy already, falling and running and tripping into bogs, fear and disgust, and, of course, extraplanar travel.

Lucy said, "We can do it."

She was so confident; it was difficult not to feel the same way. Loke wasn't sure, though, and he didn't like the idea of bargaining not only with Lucy's life but the life of a being that had no voice to state its opinion on the matter. It was their responsibility to make responsible choices and taking on a sea monster and thusly the self-proclaimed Queen of Hell did not seem like a responsible choice.

"We could leave Zeref here," Loke suggested.

Lucy protested. Natsu spoke over her. "We could but we still don't have a way to get out."

_"_ There were creatures in here before. How did they leave?"

"The Queen. No one comes or goes here without her permission. If we want to leave, we'll have to ask. And I doubt she'll just say yes."

"Also, we need the knife in Zeref's chest," Lucy said. Everyone ignored her. She stepped forward and she felt like a thunderstorm, charged and dangerous. "I'm not leaving without that knife. And I'm not leaving him to rot here!"

Natsu was still looking at her but Loke was bent on ignoring her. He looked up at the ceiling, to where the stalactites dripped. He looked around the room, too. Stone and stone and more stone. They needed to get out. His hand glowed hot with magic. He chose a jut of stone and let loose.

Magic hit it and bounced back at him like he'd thrown a rubber ball at a mirror. It struck him in the chest and knocked him back. His clothes singed and his breath left his lungs and he nearly dropped Natsu's book.

Lucy gasped and rushed to his side. She leaned over him; her hair tickled his cheek. "Are you okay?"

There was his Lucy, just a glimpse of her. She'd been gone for so long. She wasn't herself without Natsu, not as careful or caring when she spent so long worrying about where he was.

Loke took in a greedy breath and coughed. Natsu appeared over him, hand outstretched. Loke took it and Natsu lifted him up. His claws left raised welts on Loke's wrist and the power that emanated off of him was something else.

But he had the audacity to ask Loke, "What happened to your magic? Why does it look like that?" Twisted with light and dark.

That was a little difficult to explain.

He was offered a distraction: the ground started rumbling and laughter echoed throughout the cavernous room. Child's laughter, high at first, and then getting gradually lower, and lower and lower, like a record warbling underwater. Something heavy scraped across the ground. They weren't the only things in there, not by a long shot.

Natsu's eyes focused over Loke's shoulder and his expression turned grim. "Queen."

Loke did not want to look. He did, though, because to not was worse.

There she sat in a pile of bones, body looking as dry as a desert. It looked like someone had severed her bottom half and took her top and stuffed it down, like a candle being shoved into cake. Except the cake was a pile of bone, and her torso splintered like a cut and curling tree. She picked herself up with her arms and wriggled, sliding forwards. Bits of her innards slid out behind her.

"Demon Prince." All scorn. There was no respect between them. "Demon Prince, Demon Prince. Your brother said you'd never come to me. I told him you would because you like a challenge and you have a disgusting sense of loyalty. I gambled that once you learned I'd almost killed him here, you'd rush to make sure I knew my place, and he said the only thing you liked to do anymore was mope about this one." Her dead eyes touched on Lucy and Loke saw her recoil.

"I hate to lose a bet. But, in the end, what does it matter? You're here, and you're mine. And look, you've brought me your book, too."

All of the hair rose on the back of Loke's neck when she looked at him. Gods, she wasn't like anything he'd ever seen before. Centuries of Hell had made her sinister in the same way a complete absence of light was. uncaring, merciless, and hostile. You just knew there was something watching you in the darkness. You were sure your end was waiting for you.

_"_ Come forward, give me that book, Lion." She held out her bony hand. Loke couldn't move. "Lion, Lion," she sing-songed. Then her smile got like a shark's, toothy and wide.

The bone pile to her right shivered and a handmaiden raised up. His handmaiden. Loke's. Her hair looked luscious, golden and glamourous. But if you touch it, it'll be like straw, Loke thought. And her hands will be cold like ice water, and her skin will taste like bone dust and her lips like rot. He knew it like he knew himself.

"I can make sure you know none of those things," the Queen spoke right in his ear. "I can do anything. I can make sure she only cares about you. I can make it so she only smiles when she sees you, I can make her say everything you've ever wanted, and Lion, it'll be whispered in your ear."

"I love you, Loke," the handmaiden said. "Give me the book?"

She was there. She was in front of him. Even the brown in her eyes was right, warm like coffee, sweet and dark and calm. This was the girl that bargained for his life with the Spirit King. This was his Lucy, before she loved a man and lost him, before Zeref ruined their lives, before all the pain.

She started to lift her hand. Then she was burning alive and Loke was horrified but he made himself watch because while it may have looked like his Lucy, it was important for him to understand that she was not the same girl.

She turned to ash and then to nothing. Natsu panted beside Loke as his fires returned to him. "Nothing she shows you is real."

The Queen laughed joyfully and the things that lived in the dark corners of their cell writhed as if in painful pleasure. "Perhaps I shouldn't rush. I'd like to do that always and see which of you breaks first, Lion or Prince? How many times can you kill her, and how many times can you watch?" She looked between Loke and Natsu. Her eyes were like two dead stars. Just black holes, gleeful to swallow everything.

Natsu's wrath draped over them like a suffocating blanket. He came alive with fire and it raced across the ground. Loke saw the Queen drop her head back and she moaned in exaltation as the flames circled around her, and then she was gone.

Natsu's breaths broke up the quiet, the steady drip, drip, drip of the stalactites.

"Loke?" Lucy's voice was as quiet as a summer's evening, sweet and warm and real. "Loke?" She stood in front of him. She wanted his attention but he was so ashamed, he didn't want to meet her eyes. She touched his chin and forced him to look at her and he understood that maybe she'd known he'd loved her all this time. He thought that made him feel worse. "Are you okay?"

The truth? No. Not even a little bit. He stepped away from her. He couldn't be near her. Lucy looked hurt but Loke couldn't think about that just then. "Try your fire on the wall, Natsu. We need to break out of here. Before—before she comes back." And found another one of his deepest, darkest desires to torment him with.

Natsu didn't argue this time. He went to the wall where they'd entered and he glowed like the bottom of a fire pit, where the coals were the hottest and brightest. His hands smouldered. He put them against the wall and concentrated.

His magic had always been powerful but this was something else, like he was tapping into the cold bowels of Hell and harnessing fire that was not fire.

The brimstone charred and the air above it shimmered, and for a moment, Loke thought this is going to work. We're going to walk out of here.

Lucy started to sweat. It was, it was getting hot. She wavered on her feet, looking greyish and gasping. Understanding dawned on Loke and he took her arms and pulled her down to the ground where it was cool and the air was more breathable.

"Stop. Stop. It's just using up our oxygen."

Natsu stopped abruptly and whipped around on Lucy. "Are you okay?"

Her colour was returning. She sat up. "That's _not going to work."_

Natsu hit the wall and yelled and the darkness laughed. He pushed away from it. "There's no way out."

"If we pull the knife from Zeref's chest, maybe he'd wake up. Maybe he has the answers."

"Or maybe doing that would kill him," Loke muttered. "Or maybe he's another fake. Maybe we're just being played over and over and over again."

"He's real," Natsu said, like it was obvious now and he'd just been foolish before.

"It's our only option." Lucy started to rise. Loke helped her stand but took his hands away from her immediately after. He hated the Queen of Bone for taking this from him and ruining it.

Lucy pretended she didn't notice and approached the pool.

"Lucy," Natsu said sharply.

But she did not listen. Loke could only watch her sidle up to the pool's edge and stare down into its inky depths. The water burbled, and then the Gleaner was there, emerging and perching on her stone again, ever the ugly little mermaid.

"Hello, Lucy Heartfilia."

"It was you," Lucy said. "You pulled me out of the water before."

The Gleaner bowed her head shallowly.

"Get away from her." Natsu did what Loke hadn't and went to Lucy's side. He was simmering with rage again.

"My, Princeling. You're tetchy. Do you think an old crone such as I could harm one so bright as her?"

"Do you think you couldn't?" Natsu asked.

Lucy pushed him back. He looked startled. She squared her shoulders. "My celestial spirit says you want to bargain with me."

"I do." The Gleaner's wormy lips wriggled into a smile. "I do, I do. You want the knife from the Demon King's chest, but you cannot cross the Queen's pool to get it. I have the power to make it so."

"What do you want in return?"

The Gleaner's orangey eyes crinkled and it was like someone had mashed up old, soggy paper for her skin. The right pressure and it would tear. Loke did not want to see what was beneath her meat sack. "One of the Prince's memories."

"Which?"

"The feeling of being loved," the Gleaner said like not only was that a thing that a person could track down but it could be easy to cut out and give away. Like it mattered not at all. Loke snuck a look at Natsu to see how he felt about the whole thing.

He looked incensed.

Lucy recoiled. "That's—"

"What it costs to do business in Hell. Do think about your answer, but not for too long. Our Queen of Bone will be returning shortly." She reminded Loke of a corpse sinking below the water's surface, out of sight.

Silence. Then, "This is bullshit." Lucy prepared to march across the stones. A tentacle roared out of the water and came crashing down. Natsu snagged her out of the way just in time. The ground pulverized where she'd been standing. He grabbed the tentacle and sought to scorch it. It burned away in his hand. Another took its place, its intent clear: wrap around Natsu and Lucy and drown them in the black water. Loke shoved both of them back before they could be dragged into the deep and he was left there alone. That would be worse than the humiliation he'd already faced.

The tentacle disappeared and the water was flat calm again.

Lucy breathed heavily in the circle of Natsu's arms and Natsu looked scared, the dangerous kind, where he was thinking something drastic and dangerous to get out of a dangerous situation. Loke didn't like that look. It was the look of a cornered wolf.

"What are you thinking?"

"We bargain the memory," Natsu said. Lucy started chattering. She was mad.

Every time his mother wicked a sweaty lock of hair off his forehead when he was sick, she said, every time Zeref tested the gods themselves to bring him back, every time Igneel taught him a new word or introduced him to a new math problem and Natsu got it right. Or wrong, even. Every time Master Makarov would look at him approvingly when he got stronger, or every time Erza would step between him and Gray, every time Gray would step up to his side in a real clash, against real enemies. Every second of the minute Natsu decided he'd try to give his brother another life. Every moment they'd spent in Hell together thinking _This isn't right, and this isn't what I wanted._

The _I did it for you's._

Lucy said, "All of that will be gone. And you can't bring them back."

"You can tell me how they felt."

Loke was peering in on a very intimate moment. He didn't want to but he couldn't seem to look away.

_"_ I can't."

"You can. I know you can."

"You're being stupid—"

He talked over her. "We do this but we bargain for something better than just the knife in Zeref's chest. We bargain for a way out of here."

"I need that knife!" Lucy hemmed.

"You want the knife. You need to get out of here."

"Your brother is trapped!"

"Don't you think I know that?"

Loke didn't think he'd ever seen Natsu like this before. There were too much of the whites of his eyes showing.

Natsu took a breath and he was calmer. "I'll come back for him."

"Fine. Call her back." She said the right words but Lucy had her mulish face on again. She was scheming.

"Okay." Natsu approached the water cautiously, shoulders tense. Loke waited for tentacles to erupt again but it was the Gleaner that bubbled up in the roiling water, a rotting egg rising to the surface. "You've deliberated?"

"We have. I'll give you the memory you want for abstraction."

Her eyelids peeled back some. "Abstraction? From the Queen's jail? I _think_ that would be a great risk to me."

"Do you want the memory or not?"

"Of course, but at the cost of incurring her wrath?"

"You don't answer to the Queen of Bone."

The Gleaner ticked her nails across the rock, curly claws that scraped and scratched. "I like the way things go for me when she thinks I do, though. It's peaceful. If I break out her prisoners, she may try to start a war."

"She would never win it."

The Gleaner glowed like a schoolgirl handed compliments. "I do love your flattery." Then she hummed. "I'm just not certain its worth it."

"Are you sure? You'd have the one thing the Queen of Bone has never been able to get—a piece of me."

Her smile got so unnaturally wide. "Hell has formed a knife from you, Princeling, and you know where to slice to cut through to pride. How do you know I have your answers, though?"

"You move freely in and out of this cell, do you not?"

"I _do_. I do at that. My way could kill your human, though, unless you've developed the means to breathe underwater?" Her gaze went to Lucy. Lucy just stared at her, taking her in, Loke supposed. He'd felt the same way when they'd first met, she was grotesque and bore examination.

"It's that or die here," Natsu surprised Loke by saying.

"No love lost between you and the Queen, I see. Is that what makes you trust me so blindly?"

"Trickery is the work of the Queen of Bone," Natsu said. "Your business is…"

"Disgusting?" the Gleaner offered.

"But honest."

She swirled in the water and clapped her hands, laughing. "This is a _treat_. Yes. Yes, I do believe I will help you, Princeling. Give me the book."

"Get us out first," Natsu said stubbornly. "When we're all safe, you can have your memory."

Some of her glee faded. "Very well. You must keep up then."

Natsu got close to the water and pulled Lucy up beside him. Loke took a spot on her other side. "On the count of three."

The chamber was starting to feel alive. The Queen of Bone was on her way back. Maybe she knew what was about to happen. Maybe she was only returning to torment them a little more. She would not like what she found, though.

"Will we have visions?" Lucy asked.

The Gleaner grinned and Loke knew they'd be drowning in memories. "Best try not to get caught in the backlog," she said. "Quickly."

Loke sucked in a deep, deep breath, as much as possible, and when Natsu leapt, he, too, leapt for the water. Before he went under the surface, he saw Lucy shake Natsu's hold and dash for the stones.

* * *

Lucy glided over the stones and felt like a ballerina, blissfully light and purposeful. She knew what she wanted and she knew how to get to it, and here she was, flouncing her way to freedom, one step, two, three. One more leap. One more leap and she'd be at the coffin.

The ground rumbled and she knew the Queen had returned, and she knew she was angry.

The Queen screamed her displeasure and a stalactite wobbled free from the ceiling and splashed into the black water at Lucy's feet. Some of the water got onto her skin and she was thrust into a memory. Gray was touching her and she was the saddest she'd ever been. His hands were in a cold sweat and she was quivering and it felt good but it felt bad to feel that way. Then the sun slid through her drapes and she was alone, and she knew it was for good, and all she could think was, _I hate myself._

The memory let her go and Lucy gasped. She could still feel its dregs in her heart.

"Where are the others, little star?" The Queen's voice came from all directions. Lucy couldn't see her, though. That was worse, knowing that something wicked had you in its sights but not being able to identify where it watched you from.

She felt like a rabbit. Run, run, run, run straight into a snare.

"Did they leave you and your whelp behind?"

Lucy looked up. More stalactites. Down, black water. Around the room, eyes. Hungry eyes. The Queen's guests had returned and they watched her from the shadows, ready to pounce.

"Were you the sacrifice so they could make their grand escape? Or were you just too foolish to follow them?"

Another stalactite fell and Lucy went through great effort not only to avoid being crushed but to dodge the flying water. Memories like that could be debilitating. She didn't want to give the Queen another moment in which she just stood there, a slave to the past.

"You're going to die, little star. And I'm going to make art of your corpse and hang it in my antechamber and whenever I have guests, they'll remark on how bizarrely ugly you are."

Lucy heard the _click, click_ of tarsal claws. Huge ones, right above her. _Don't look up_ , she thought. _Don't_. _Focus on getting Zeref. Focus on getting out._ She took another step. This time, she wobbled, her knees weren't as cooperative as she'd hoped.

Another stalactite fell and Lucy couldn't dodge fast enough. She hurtled into the memory of staring down the Spirit King. Loke was at her side, diminished and near lifeless. He was hanging in the balance and she was the only thing holding him steady. More sadness. It felt like she'd had a lifetime of it.

_But remember how happy you were after? When the Spirit King agreed to let him live?_ She held onto that feeling.

The memory faded and Lucy was back in her cell and there was a thread of silk around her. Thin, and wispy, diaphanous, almost. It reminded her of the spiders' webs that she would find in the attic of her dad's mansion, when she'd spend hours going through her mother's clothes, trying to feel connected to her once again after she'd died.

She batted it away from her and it clung to her fingers like spiders' web, too.

_No, no, no._

She did not like spiders.

Sharp claws dug into her shoulders and a scream jammed in her throat. She would not turn around. To turn around and to _see_ was to give the Queen power.

She needed to fight.

Lucy pulled out her whip and flung it behind herself. Celestial blue filled the cavern and the whip's tip dug into something soft and very solid. It hissed. Lucy brought her whip around to the front and sliced through the webbing. She could move again and move she did, lunging to the coffin and scrabbling at its glass surface.

She was hit in the shoulder by something solid and she fell sideways, off the pedestal and towards the water. She caught herself before she could fall into the pool. Another stalactite fell from the ceiling and nearly skewered her. It broke apart and _more_ water flung memories at her. Angel standing over her superiorly, forcing Aries to fight Loke; Kane, about to break her in two, then making her hit Natsu, giggling at the calamity; Jellal in his Tower of Heaven, possessed and dangerous and ready to destroy them all. She was alone, the guild was disbanded, and then everyone had come back to her and she was on the cusp of losing everything again.

The Queen didn't need to torment her with false images, she had nightmare-worthy memories all on her own.

Lucy gasped when the water finally let her go and looked up. She was on her side and there was the Queen of Bone, looming over her. Her torso was humane-esque but her legs were a spider's, narrow and glossy and black. One leg scraped her forearm and threatened to split the skin.

"You have so many fears. It's hard to choose which to torment you with."

Lucy thought, _It's not real_. None of it was. It was all in her head. Even if it _felt_ real.

_You stayed for the knife and Zeref. So get up. Get them._ She hadn't travelled so far so she could be bullied into submission by a supposed Queen whose only trick was to frighten her.

The Queen's visage wavered because the trick to illusion magic was awareness. As soon as Lucy thought, _this is all just a trick,_ the Queen above her started to quiver at the edges and Lucy could see the place where the body was super-imposed on reality. The Queen of Bone wasn't really standing above her.

Lucy set her mouth in a determined line and locked her elbows, then her knees. She grabbed a piece of broken stalactite on the way up and clutched it so hard, it hurt her palm.

The Queen lunged for Lucy but she passed straight through her.

"If you're going to try to kill me, you could at least have the decency to come and do it yourself." The Queen didn't respect them, Lucy, Natsu and Loke. Or she had been confident that no one in Hell would dare betray her and show them a way out.

Either way, she'd grossly underestimated Natsu and his rescue party.

Lucy hefted the hunk of stone and brought it down on Zeref's coffin with all of her might. The glass shattered into a million dust-size pieces. The thorns started to rot.

The door on the wall opened and Lucy knew the Queen, the _real_ Queen, had come to stop her. She had no time to wonder if she was about to do this wrong. She grabbed the knife's leather handle and yanked with all her might. It came out of Zeref's chest with a wet squelch.

His eyes came open, black as a starless sky, and air wheezed into his lungs. He grabbed her throat and his fingers were talons. Lucy didn't know how she let the other Zeref fool her. This Zeref felt completely despotic.


	15. Chapter 15

There was no air in her lungs and no way Lucy could dislodge Zeref's grip. For a dead man that was recently paralyzed, he was incredibly strong. And wrathful. His eyes were two narrow slits and in their glossy red gleam, Lucy saw her own eyes, wide like dull dollars.

Zeref's fingers were so tight, she could see where her skin indented and bruised. This wasn't the first time she'd been attacked like this, choked until black spots danced in her vision, so she told herself not to panic. She grabbed his wrists and dug her fingers into his skin hard enough to rupture it. He didn't bleed. He didn't even flinch, in fact, and the queen was coming closer.

Lucy couldn't move away from Zeref but that didn't mean that she had to be weaponless. She pulled out her whip and it lit up, gently blue, pushing at the shadows. Things hissed all around them, including Zeref. Finally, he let her go, and Lucy took in greedy breaths, her eyes on the queen. She looked like a sun spider, low to the ground, scuttling forward. Lucy counted eight limbs Her arms had turned long and glossy, the skin sloughing off and the bone revealing beneath, white like the face of the moon.

"Give me the knife, little star." The Queen's voice was the raw scratch of illness, like infection had settled in her body and she was rotting from the inside out.

Lucy clutched the knife so hard, she was afraid for her fingers. "No."

"You have no claim to it. It's mine." She was at the edge of the pool now, standing over the stones, poised to come across. If she did that, they'd be trapped. Better to go to her so they could both be on solid ground, without the River of Forgetting lapping dangerously at their feet, waiting to give one or the other the advantage, but first, she needed room to do so.

"I've recently learned when you want something in this world, you have to take it," Lucy said. "No one will give you anything for free."

"You're right. I will tear you apart and take what's mine," the Queen sneered and put one of her rotting hands on the stone nearest to shore. Lucy's heart beat faster. She channeled the celestial realm as much as she possibly could so far from the stars and snapped her whip with all of her strength. It tore open a piece of the Queen's cheek and small, white wiggly things tumbled from her ruptured skin. Maggots? Lucy wondered.

The Queen looked honestly surprised. She retreated, hissing. Hope unfurled in Lucy's chest. She raised her whip again and moved forward when the Queen moved back, getting over the first two rocks. When she was stretching for the third, the Queen rushed her. Lucy stepped back and hefted her whip again. It wasn't her whip in her hand, though, it was a snake, and it was twisting around on her. It sunk its fangs into her neck before she could even really register what was happening. Her eyes watered and her breath got caught in her lungs and she couldn't move an inch, paralyzed by pain. The Queen scuttled towards her, smiling her grotesque smile.

Lucy thought, _if she gets to you, all of this will be over. It all would be for nothing._ She still couldn't _move,_ though.

 _Yes. You can. Remember. Down here, there are beasts and there are monsters. There is danger in every corner. But there are no snakes, not in your hand_. She was carrying her _whip,_ a piece of the stars. A light in the darkness. _It's part of the Heavens. It is mine, not hers to control._

Something miraculous happened—she felt the snake's fangs dissolve. She held her whip once more and she could feel her spirits through it, distant but lending her their strength. She used its dully glowing tip to cleave the Queen's face again. The left side fell away completely. Then it was just bone and a dull yellow eye full of hatred peering back at Lucy.

Lucy swung at the Queen again and the Queen made more of a concerted effort to get away. Lucy's path to the mainland was free. She moved as quickly as her body would allow, snapping the tip of her whip with force. The Queen reared back the final time Lucy attacked and Lucy got her in the belly, tearing her open from stem to stern. More white maggots dropped out, writhing and dying on the ground.

The Queen clutched her middle and panted. "You're a nasty little rat."

"I wanted to leave Hell peacefully. This is on you," Lucy told her with her chin up. She wouldn't let the Queen know her legs wanted to quiver and deposit her on her rump. She wanted to be the thing the Queen feared when she closed her eyes. Hell's deepest, darkest corners would whisper _Lucy Heartfilia_ with reverence. She would never be afraid to return here again.

"Like there's peace in Hell. You're naïve. No one comes and goes as they wish and no one takes what is mine," the Queen spat. She looked truly grotesque now. More white maggots crawled over her exposed bone and dropped from her mouth as she spoke. They fell on the ground and desiccated in the pale blue light, like they couldn't survive so far away from her.

 _What happens when they've all abandoned her?_ Would she, too, die? Lucy schemed. "Natsu isn't yours."

"Not any more than he's yours. Not yet, anyway," the Queen said with a wicked smile. "But I will break him. I break everyone."

"Enough talking. Either let us leave or fight."

"This is interesting. Will you try to finish me with your whip? Because it won't be enough to kill me. You'll tire eventually, little star, and then I'll tear you to little pieces and make a necklace of your bones." She touched her long, grotesque neck like a debutant preening in front of a mirror. "They'll be beautiful. Be kind to yourself and lay down your weapon. Die with some dignity."

She was right, in a way—Lucy didn't have the energy to keep this up for long. And her whip wasn't blazing as brightly as it was even a moment ago. _And you still need to go after Natsu._ She had to make it through the River of Forgetting. Willingly submerge herself into that hell pit and try to withstand the bombardment of memories that would try to drown her. Would there be any light down there, or would she swim in circles and drown, no closer to Natsu and Loke and the Gleaner?

Lucy broke and glanced over her shoulder. Zeref hadn't moved an inch, he was just watching them with a poisoned expression on his face. "Help me."

"I told you, I break my toys," the Queen said conspiratorially. "He's relived the worst moments of his life over and over again; I'm afraid he's gone mad."

She could just imagine what terrible things Zeref had to relive in his glass coffin. He had a lifetime of sin for the Queen to choose from. "You're horrible."

"I am exactly what I'm meant to be."

Zeref's demons had thought similarly when they were alive. Lucy wondered what it would be like to wake up one day and think, I'm the worst version of me. This is who I know how to be, though, who I'm _meant_ to be, and I'm okay with that. Liberating, maybe.

 _Is that what it takes to survive Hell_? If she couldn't beat them, should she become _worse_ than them? _Could_ she be more merciless than the Queen of Bone, one of Hell's most-feared denizens?

"Give me the knife now, little star. Stop this game."

"No." Lucy shook her head. "Never." She couldn't save Natsu without it.

"What's the point in fighting? You'll never make it out of here alive."

She _could_ see her death in this place. Her and Natsu could be together. _And the baby?_ Hell was no place for him. Or was it? It was part demon.

 _This is what the Queen wants, complacency. You don't have to settle, though. You can survive Hell._ And she had the proof in front of her. The Queen of Bone was suffering.

Lucy drew herself up. "Who will stop me? You're hurt, otherwise, you wouldn't waste time talking, you'd simply take what you wanted."

The Queen's expression twisted. "You're right. I am injured. But unlike you, I have an army to do my bidding." She stepped back and lifted her hands and the shadows came alive, the ghouls had returned and they surrounded Lucy from all sides. They no longer looked chipper, their eyes were alight with menace and their lips were pulled back, revealing glossy, needle-like teeth. The very air hummed with danger. Lucy's breathing tube was a pinhole.

 _You can do this, don't panic._ She just had to do a spell. Her strongest. She could take care of them all in one fell swoop. _Just reach for the stars. Reach for the stars and command their energy. You can do it._

She _would_ do it. She'd do it for Natsu and her baby, for Loke and for Zeref. She'd do it for herself. She was finished losing.

Lucy closed her eyes and tried to imagine the lightlessness in Hell was the spaces between galaxies.

"Survey the Heavens, Open the Heavens...

All the stars, far and wide...

Show me thy appearance...

With such shine."

She could feel the makings of the magic but... she couldn't imagine the stars. She was weak, and this was Hell. There was no sky here.

 _Don't give up._ The Queen of Bone fed off weakness like worms fed on the dead.

"Oh, Tetrabiblos..."

There it was.

"I _am_ the ruler of the stars...

Aspect become complete..."

The spell was coming. It was a low-voltage shock, though, not the blast she desired. _Please, please, please_ , Lucy thought. _Please. Something. Anything._ Any help at all.

Then something miraculous happened. She felt cold fingers slide into hers. She opened her eyes. Zeref was beside her and shadows clung to him. His dark, strange magic twisted up with the weak starlight Lucy generated. It didn't snuff it out, though. Suddenly, she felt fuller. Like she could do this.

"Open thy malevolent gate." Zeref's voice joined hers and Lucy's got stronger. "Oh, eighty-eight Stars of the heaven..." Not just stronger. _Powerful._ She felt Zeref beside her. She could touch his magic. She could manipulate it. They were near strangers that had spent most of their lives at odds with each other. But Natsu was the string that connected them. The _night_ connected them.

"Shine! Urano Metria!" Lucy finished and her spell came out, not bright like it used to be, but twisted with darkness. It swung through the cavern and she felt it snuff out lives, one by one, a pulsing and unforgiving wave that was simultaneously good and horrifically awful.

It was over in a matter of seconds. Afterwards, the cavern felt airless. The magic dissipated, though, and Lucy could breathe again. The light over the pool worked to keep out the dark. Bodies lay across the cavern floor, horned heads limp, clothing wrinkled, motionless and without blemish. It was like their hearts just stopped.

She hunted for the Queen of Bone but she was gone. Disappeared into one of the cracks, probably.

Zeref removed his hand from hers one finger at a time because Lucy clenched him so hard. She quivered, _finally_ , so badly her teeth chattered.

"We unison raided," Lucy said experimentally, seeing how the words sounded aloud. Wobbly. "Me and you."

"She's still alive."

"Everything else is dead, though." Which was terrifying and amazing. Even more terrifying was wondering what it would be like to have Natsu's power in her hand. The demon that destroyed Zeref, once the most powerful mage in the world. She'd never considered it before. it made her palms tingle nervously.

Zeref looked around the room like it mattered not at all. "Where is my brother?"

"The Gleaner took him through the River of Forgetting to escape. I stayed to get this." Lucy held up the knife.

Zeref looked the pool over with distaste. "She let him pass?"

"Natsu bargained with her," Lucy admitted.

"What?"

"The first time he felt loved."

The only tell to Zeref's displeasure was the tightening of his fist. He understood better than anyone that gifts came with a cost. _But has he learned that lesson, really?_ Lucy mused. If he _had,_ he wouldn't have left Natsu's book outside Kardia Cathedral where Lucy could find it, he would have accepted what Fate gave to him.

 _He is who he was meant to be._ A defier of gods.

"This is the only way out; the Queen won't let us pass through the _Athenaeum_." He looked Lucy over disparagingly and the words he didn't say were loud anyway. She wasn't fit for another Unison Raid. The only thing that was unclear was if he thought that was because of her current disposition or exhaustion. Lucy found she didn't care. She didn't want another fight with the Queen just yet. She wanted the quickest route to Natsu.

"It's fine. We can make it."

Zeref didn't look very certain. "Don't get confused in the memories. And swim down. Always."

"I'm ready." She stood at the edge of the pool and though she didn't take Zeref's hand again, she felt still a thread of connection to him. Her family was growing with grotesques but she was happy for it. She closed her eyes and leapt into the black water.

* * *

Some strange current pulled Natsu forward into a lightless, stone shoot at a pace he could not fight, like they'd been caught in the thalweg of a river and it was racing at maximum flow velocity.

Natsu didn't need to breathe, not really, it was an old habit he'd picked up in his past life, though, and it was a hard one to kick. He felt the black water pressing in on him on all sides, the pressure increasing the deeper and deeper they swam, and his lungs felt hollow. Worse, though, was the light of Loke's magic that flickered on and off, periodically illuminating the water ahead of them, where the Gleaner swam with her bloated octopus-like body and all of her ghouls watched from the nooks and crannies. Natsu couldn't convey to him to douse it, he couldn't stay upright, tossed every which way, he couldn't speak, and he was being assailed by memories he'd rather not experience again. They were so real; he couldn't see the world around him.

He was small and lost in the forest, without a mother or a father or any other family to speak of. Igneel was gone and he was alone. That memory bled into the next. Lisanna's funeral, where they buried an empty casket. He felt that loss like a blight in his heart. He thought once, it would rot him from the inside.

 _But then Lucy came._ And showed him how to be happy again.

He had a second's reprieve and then he was hit again with another poisonous memory. He was in the Tower of Heaven and he was watching Erza's heart break. Her face haunted him for months afterwards, the betrayal she'd worn. He never wanted to feel that way about someone he loved.

Next, a councilmember was dying in front of him; and then he lost Igneel, _again_. And Lucy was crying. Aquarius was gone. He felt helpless. Hopeless, and unable to express that. He was Lucy's rock when things got bad. He couldn't let her see he was floundering. Never.

_So you wrote her a note and you disappeared for a year. She was with your best friend the night you left. And didn't tell you for weeks after you got back._

He thought that would wreck him. But then he remembered all that happened after. Lying in the bed in the motel with Lucy, the truth, the pain that paved the way to peace. In the motel's little shower, when he was inside her and though he was slowly turning into a demon, he felt human. Maybe for the first time.

The memories eased back and he was in the tunnel again, swept up in the current, going on and on. Ahead, Loke's light dimmed and went out; Natsu could see nothing. He tried reaching behind himself for Lucy, to know she was okay. It was too long to hold her breath. The baby. He couldn't feel her. He used his fire to light up the world. Things that hid in the crevasses of the chute jerked back from him. Not Lucy, though. She wasn't behind him and she wasn't ahead of him. She wasn't anywhere.

That's when Natsu started to fight. He wrenched around and tried to swim back but it was like a rope had been tied to his leg and was pulling him along with great force. He tried using his fire as a propellant. The River of Forgetting was unforgiving. He smacked his head off the tunnel and saw stars. His fire went out. Natsu screamed all of the remaining air out of his lungs and clawed the walls. His nails tore and his skin opened and he was no closer to returning from whence they came.

Then something was happening—the water was rushing faster and faster. He was spinning around. He felt nauseous. Death hadn't cured him of that ailment. The stone narrowed and he and Loke got squished together, like a stopper on a champagne bottle. It lasted for a total of three seconds, then the pressure became too much and they burst out, into the cold air of Hell and onto hard stone.

Natsu stared up at the stalactited ceiling for a moment with his mouth watering and his stomach trying to crawl out of his throat. They were in a small cavern lit up by burning faeries. They darted in and around the stalactites until they noticed him there and descended, buzzing in his ear. They had plenty to say. There had been a battle. The Queen was hurt. All Natsu could think of was Lucy.

_Show me._

The world tilted and he saw through their eyes. The Queen of Bone was in the charred remains of her library of heads, looking like a bloated spider and holding her face together. Maggots dropped between her fingers. She screamed in frustration and though they were far apart, Natsu could feel the bowels of Hell quiver with the sound. It brought him a perverse sort of pleasure to see her so distressed.

She looked up at the faeries circling over her head and it was like they were looking into each other's eyes. She told Natsu, "I'm going to ruin you." The faeries started to die then, turning to bone and dust. Natsu felt it like it was happening to him, desiccating and falling apart.

He'd never encouraged the faeries to attack before but he did now, sending them down, miniature devils, buffeting her with fire. She skittered back and back and back until she hit a pile of bone in one of the dusty corners. Then she retreated into it like she was sliding through a trap door, gone. She could travel anywhere in Hell like that. One boneyard was connected to the next and Hell was filthy with them.

Natsu tried looking for Lucy in the room, scared to find her on her belly, mostly bone. _You'd know if she was dead,_ he thought when he couldn't see her. _You'd feel it._ And if he couldn't feel it, the Queen would have bragged about it. She would have, at the very least, made Lucy's corpse her marionette, just to torture him.

 _So she's still alive._ He wrenched away and was back with Loke and the Gleaner. The Gleaner was out of the water for the first time since Natsu had known her. Eight tentacles slapped wetly on the floor, each twitching at different intervals. She plucked leaches off of them, one at a time and crushed them between her teeth. It was disgusting. Natsu looked for Loke and found him on his knees by the River of Forgetting, hand thrust in up to his elbow. He fished around blindly, yelling Lucy's name.

"She did not jump," the Gleaner said calmly. "She's still in the Queen's prison."

Natsu sat up slowly. His stomach didn't revolt. Bully. "Bring us back."

"That was not part of the deal."

"Bring us back _now._ " When politeness failed, brutish force had always done solid by him.

Unless, of course, he was trying to intimidate an incongruous fixture of Hell. The Gleaner did not flinch; she did not care about his wrath the way others did. She held out her hand. "Your book, Princeling."

Natsu chanced tactics. "Tell me what you want to take us back. I'll give it."

"I have everything I need. Your _book._ "

She wouldn't move on the matter.

Natsu took a deep, calming breath. "Loke."

Loke didn't answer. He was now waist-deep in the River of Forgetting, lost in his own world. His chest was heaving and his eyes were fogged over, seeing some terror or another, but he hunted mercilessly for Lucy, muttering her name over and over again. The water ahead of him lightened with a sheen of white-blonde hair. Another handmaiden, come to trick him. She emerged from the water like a rotten egg. Natsu couldn't see which face she portrayed for the celestial spirit, but he had an idea when Loke's shoulders relaxed and his breath _whooshed_ out. Natsu burned her up with a thought to Loke's manic scream.

It was all over in a matter of seconds. ash and blistered fat floated down into the darkness of Hell for some water beast to slurp up. Loke reeled on him, seething.

"It's not real," Natsu said. "That was one of the Queen of Bone's handmaidens." They'd keep coming until either all of them were dead or they finally drove him and Loke mad and lured them like lemmings to the Queen.

The fury faded from Loke's eyes. In its wake, he looked exhausted and near defeat. He swayed from the River of Forgetting and collapsed to his knees. "Where is she?"

"She stayed in the prison." He should have seen it coming, honestly. Lucy was a stubborn risk-taker now. She did things like stay behind to save the world's foulest mage from a nasty fate at the hands of a nasty demon. Natsu glared at Loke because he was the only one Natsu could think to blame. He'd been travelling with Lucy for all this time. He was either responsible for putting thoughts like that in her head or for not squashing them. Either way, he was guilty.

"Your book, Princeling," the Gleaner reminded. "Before we've visitors."

Would the Queen of Bone be foolish enough to come for him now, when she was weak and injured? He hoped.

"You're not a match for her, End, not even as you are, not alone," the Gleaner said, reading him.

"You didn't see her just now," Natsu said.

"I didn't have to. I know your fires have done her no harm before and they will do her no harm now."

"Lucy's hurt her."

Her tentacles slapped with annoyance. "Yes. _Lucy_ has. Lucy is of the stars. You're of Hell. Like the Queen. You can't fight darkness with darkness. Not without light guiding you. Now stop avoiding the inevitable and give me what I'm due."

"Why do you care so much about this one memory?" He'd never understood it.

Her persimmon-coloured eyes glowed. "You're the only one of us who's lived as a human has, experiencing the things humans do, under the guise that you were one of them. There is no happiness in Hell, Princeling. There are only the memories of it, and yours are some of the purest. Now, please."

Natsu held out his hand for the book. Loke stared up at him, blank-eyed, and said, "We should be focusing our energy on Lucy, not a stupid memory."

"I know," Natsu responded, "Give me the book."

Loke clutched it to his chest. His blank-eyed stare was starting to waver, to turn protective. "It's safe here. With me."

And Natsu was about to brutalize it. Gladly. His hatred of that book ran deeper than its pages, into the skin. He couldn't hate Zeref for what he'd done, but himself for what he was? It kept him from the most important promise he'd ever made and put everyone he'd ever cared about in danger. If he could tear some part of it out, he would do it with pleasure.

He didn't ask again, grabbing Loke by the lapels and tearing his jacket open. The book was clutched to his chest, looking criminal. And dry, despite their trip through the river. Its leather was too light and thin to be cowhide, and its title was writ in something so dark, it could only have been blood. Was this what was left of the sacrifice Zeref used to bring him back to life? Had Zeref been carrying a piece of him around all this time?

Natsu didn't like to think about the lives that were wasted to bring him back from the Reaper's halls. It made him feel like the monster his brother made.

Loke beat him back but he was weaker than he usually was. He hadn't been home in a very long time and Hell was no place for a celestial. Natsu snatched the book away and kept Loke at bay with a well-placed shove. He could smell the wounds on Loke's shoulder, the dried blood, the scratches left behind by imps, no doubt. The festering flesh that was trapped in their nails when they raked them across Loke's shoulder was pungent in Natsu's nose.

Loke hissed and stumbled back into the river. Natsu faced the Gleaner with his book raised. He'd never held it in his hands before. It weighed a great deal. _It's your entire life._ All of his memories. All of who he was.

The Gleaner tried to steal it away with her calloused and twiggy fingers. Natsu held it steadfast. "It doesn't leave my hands."

Her smile came slowly. "Wise, Princeling. Wise. Open it."

He peeled back the cover, the sound like tearing open a scab, and Hell hushed. The Gleaner touched the desiccated pages with her slimy fingertips, reading quickly. Natsu had to take more time. He wasn't very comfortable with the language of Alvarez and this was ancient, difficult to understand.

She flipped the page, and the next, and the next before finally jabbing one with her nail. Natsu felt it like a shot in the shoulder. "This is the one."

He skimmed over what she'd pointed out and was both relieved and ashamed to feel that way. "Alright."

"Wait," Loke said, and he sounded more like himself for an instant. He'd gotten out of the river again and was leaning over his shoulder, reading what the Gleaner had pointed out. "Natsu, that's who you are."

No. He never knew this person. It wouldn't be much trouble to cut him out. "Do it."

The Gleaner tore the page free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, in case some of my readers here didn't know, I'm quitting fan fiction once my ongoing stories are complete. If you would like to keep reading my stuff/if you can support my love for writing in any small way, I'm posting now on Patreon as Kaitlin Corvus. If you're a little interested but a little tentative, I have an original work posted here on Archive for free. It's called Smoke and Fire. Check 'er out.


	16. Chapter 16

The River of Forgetting pressed against Lucy on all sides, cold enough to cramp her muscles, and memories assaulted her. In one breath, she was coming home with her mother from a long trip to the country, excited to see her father, and in the next, he was screaming at her because she'd bothered him in his study without knocking. She flinched from his red-faced wrath, feeling stupid and unloved.

When the scene changed, she was at her mother's door. The nurse didn't want Lucy sitting at her bedside. Or even seeing her, for that matter. Lucy peeked in any way. There was a thing in the bed but it was not her mother. Its skin was pale with a greenish hue. Almost like yogurt going to mould. It was thin as a stretched tarp. Lucy could see the bones in her shoulders and her ribcage.

Layla's eyes opened. They were black and lifeless. _Like they were in the_ _Athenaeum._

_"_ _You shouldn't be here, Lucy." Layla's voice used to be as sweet as syrup. Death reached inside her and rotted that, too. It broke apart in all the wrong places and scared Lucy so badly, she sucked in a breath. A breath of water._

_Her lungs protested fiercely. Lucy could only cough but even that was torture. She had no_ _air_ _to breathe in. There was just darkness and memory and swirling tunnels. And the tombstone in another memory._

_Her father stood over Layla's grave. His shoulders were knots and his eyes were dark and stormy. Lucy played with the keys around her throat, the last things she had of her mother. Her father's gaze fell on them and for a very clear and very brutal moment, Lucy knew that a part of him hated them. She didn't understand why, though, and was afraid to ask._

It passed in silence. Silence. Silence. Like the years. Silence and tears padded the gaps between her and her father.

_Until he died, too_ , Lucy thought.

Her lungs were _burning_ and her head was spinning. She wanted Aquarius. She wanted Natsu. She wanted Loke. _Greedy Lucy._

Stone scraped her arms and her legs, her cheek. It burned like nothing else. Lucy pushed away from the wall and hit another body. At first, she was afraid, then her old memories made way for a new one. She wasn't alone here. Her ally wasn't one she would have foreseen even a year ago, but he was the one by her side. They both wanted the same thing.

Memory grabbed her again. Pillows and blankets and drunk shame. Tears and fear and broken friendships. Loss. _You almost lost everything._

_But then Natsu._ Natsu fixed everything.

_Like he always does._

A year ago, that truth was a source of great angst but today, she clutched onto it. She didn't have enough energy to fight for everything, not by herself. She needed help. She needed Natsu.

His memory nipped at the River of Forgetting's insatiable hunger. Lucy opened her eyes and saw nearly nothing. Black shapes in blackness, that could be stone or beast or Zeref. She spun in the current like a maple seed, nearly insubstantial. She reached out and felt nothing except the cold press of rock on one side. Where was Zeref?

_Did we get separated?_ she wondered. He was there just a second ago. _Did something grab him? Did I fight the Queen of Bone for_ nothing _?_ What would she tell Natsu? She stayed for his brother but couldn't even bring back his corpse?

Then Lucy felt a hand clasp on hers. She thought at once _good,_ she was about to be saved. Yanked onto land, perhaps, where she could gasp for air until she felt less like dying. Then, beside the hand, teeth like a lamprey's dug into her arm. _Not Zeref._ Not Zeref at all.

She was jerked back, out of the river's thalweg so quickly, her neck protested. She waited to feel cold air on her but there was only water and stone in every direction. Endless blackness that felt sickly divine, slick with algae. She could get no purchase, though she _tried._

The teeth dug deeper into her arm. Lucy expelled the little bit of breath she had left in a weak scream and took out her whip. Fading light robin's egg blue touched on another of Hell's endless horrors. Slits for eyes that never saw, a slimy body without scales, though it looked like they should be there, fins like hands, the ends claws.

Its mouth _was_ a sucker like a lamprey and it was digging into her arm mercilessly. Blood curled out, looking black in the black water. Dizzy, Lucy slid her whip back. She didn't have enough room or enough energy to hit the creature with any force, though. It remained attached, _feeding_ on her.

_I did_ not _come all this way to be eaten in an eddy in the bowels of Hell,_ she thought and did the only thing she could think to. She rallied her strength and smacked her arm off the wall, pinning the creature there. She raised her whip and used it like a blunt instrument, squishing the creature into the wall and rolling it off the rock. Its teeth cinched in harder for an instant, then it let go with a low squeal that made Lucy's ears hurt.

_Now swim,_ Lucy thought, but she didn't know how to get back into the flow of water _and_ darkness edged her vision. _It's the water,_ she thought. But that wasn't right. Her cold fingers had loosened their hold on her whip and it was falling through the water column. Its light was going out. It felt like her hope was, too.

Something tightened around her arm. _The creature,_ Lucy thought at once—it had come back for her.

This felt different, though, painful in new ways. Cold. Cold like mountain ice in a mountain stream. Cold like Zeref. _Like his magic._ She felt it wrap around her like a vice and then she was tearing through the water again at unsafe speeds. Her elbow scraped a piece of rock and her cheek did, too, her boot came halfway off. Lucy wanted to flex her toes to keep it there. Her body wasn't doing anything she wanted it to. Soon, she couldn't even think about stuff like that. She could only think of nothing.

* * *

Hell softened at the edges of Natsu's periphery and he was assaulted by a memory he didn't know he had, taking him to another place, four hundred years in the past.

Sunlight streamed down between the clouds. It was warm. A fly buzzed on a decaying apple. Natsu liked to watch it crawl into the spongy fruit. It would drop its abdomen occasionally, laying its eggs. The sweet-bitter stench of rot burned his nose.

Natsu sat on a porch, a tall glass of cool tea in his hand. Mother had dusted the rim with sugar to make it sweet. He wouldn't drink it otherwise, and he needed to stay hydrated if he were to get better. The doctor said.

So he drank it, though it made his insides feel sloshy and spongy like that rotting apple. He drank it so Mother would not cry. So he and Zeref could go back to the riverside and play. So afterwards, they could eat pie until they felt sick for different reasons. Better reasons. That they'd laugh about afterwards.

A shadow fell over him. He looked up. His mother was there. She'd gotten up today, dressed in her best blue tunic and black stola and plaited her hair. It shone like black satin ribbons. He wanted to touch it. It would be soft like satin, as well. It'd been a while since he'd seen her so put together. Natsu hadn't noticed on his own and didn't understand the significance, really, but he'd overheard Zeref speaking with Father about it and it seemed Bad that she spent most of her time in her bedclothes with tangled hair.

He reached for her. She picked him up and held him. Too tight. She was always doing that recently. Natsu waited for her to bury her face in his shoulder and to feel her sob. She cleared her throat and sniffed and that was it.

"Do you feel well enough to join me?"

"Yes," Natsu immediately lied, for her benefit _and_ his. He was _tired_ of sitting on the porch or lying in bed. He wanted an adventure. "Where are we going?"

"We're going to pick apples," she responded. "Just me and you."

Natsu hid his smile against his mother's neck. It almost seemed like she didn't want to be around him lately. It was nice to spend the day with her.

The orchard was on their land, through a spread of thick forest that opened up. It was hidden off the main track to prevent travellers from taking their apples. Waxed, they sustained Natsu's family in the thick of winter, when fresh fruit was hard to come by in the markets.

Mother let him down on the ground once they were in the thick of the trees. Natsu flopped onto his bottom to sort through the apples that had fallen. Toughened grass poked through his toga and scraped his legs and more flies and hornets buzzed, going in and out of the rottenest apples. He didn't touch those. Once, Zeref had ignored the hornets warning buzz and paid the price for it. He had a welt on his chin for days and cried because it itched so badly.

Mother sang while she worked. It wasn't any song Natsu knew—she made it up as she went, and made it all about him. Sometimes, the things she said were silly, and other times they were dramatic. Dragons, she trilled, he would ride his dragons through the apples, catching trees and catching leaves and catching bees. _Dragons_. They wouldn't give him a fright, he was a knight, on his way to slay fish.

Nothing made sense. Natsu _loved_ it. He laughed and drummed up the energy to dance, forgetting about the hornets or any good apples he might be crushing. Mother danced with him. She laughed, too. And everything was good. Everything was _perfect_.

When Natsu collapsed, it was from exhaustion. His laughter was followed by Mother's. Together, they looked up at the sky, watching the blue fading to orange.

"I would give you anything I could, Natsu," she said after moments of silence. Sadness had scratched its way back into her voice. The sunlight softened it. Natsu looked at her. One of her satin locks had come out of her braid and tickled around her cheek. She looked like a goddess. He didn't know anymore more beautiful.

"I love you," he said on a whim and curled into her. He fit neatly under her chin.

Mother's eyes sparkled. "I love you, too."

The memory softened at its edges and turned brittle. Then it started to turn black and flake away like ash flaked from burned wood. It crumbled and fell apart and Natsu felt scooped out. The feeling was so unexpected, he wavered on his feet, abruptly back in Hell. He felt different than when he left it moments before. A piece of him was missing. A huge piece. He didn't know it was a structural wall when he'd taken it out, but without it, it felt like he could crumble at any moment.

"Natsu?" Loke nudged.

_Natsu_.

"Thank you, Princeling." The Gleaner's tentacles slapped wetly on the ground. She beamed her pleasure with her ugly smile, showing ugly teeth. "I will treasure what you have not." She took the page she'd torn from his book and started chewing it. Bit by bit, the words Zeref had scrawled long ago were torn apart and consumed. Each time she bit down, he felt it.

The Gleaner slunk back into the water like a waterlogged corpse and in a moment was out of sight.

Natsu stood there for what felt like an eternity. Loke took a chance and dashed through the silence. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Natsu responded eventually, and it was mostly true. Now the loss felt like a phantom limb. He didn't even remember what was missing until he looked down at the book he still held and saw the jagged edges near the binding where something had been yanked. Like a rotten tooth.

_And like that rotten tooth, you're better off without it,_ he reasoned. That Natsu was dead. He'd been dead for nearly four hundred years. _This_ Natsu. He wasn't even the Natsu that lived in Magnolia. He wasn't Fairy Tail's Natsu. He was Hell's Natsu. He didn't—

He didn't remember what he didn't do. But he didn't do it.

The River of Forgetting noisily regurgitated one body, throwing it up on the stony bank. Lucy's hair clung to her face, hiding her. Natsu could smell her blood, though, and knew for sure it was her and not another imposter to trick him or Loke. Loke was closest and went to her before Natsu could think of moving. Her eyes were closed and the skin around them was powder blue, like chicory. It was an ugly colour for skin.

The river belched again and another person came up. Natsu recognized Zeref's dark hair and pallid skin.

Zeref reached for the bank. His fingers slipped and he was carried further downstream. Natsu watched him bob with a sense of great detachment. Zeref went under once and Natsu thought that would be it, but the river would not keep him. He came back up and splashed once for the bank like he couldn't decide if he wanted to live or if it would be easier to die his second death without punishment or redemption.

Natsu couldn't decide, either.

Loke let out a cry of frustration, snagging Natsu's attention again. He went to Lucy and crouched down beside her. She was cold and unmoving. He put one hand on her belly and the other behind her neck and lifted her. She fit against him like they were meant to be that way. Except she wasn't breathing. An old twang of panic vibrated through him but he couldn't remember its source, he only knew he did not want this. Lucy was supposed to be _alive_.

Zeref was forgotten. Natsu pushed Loke back and lifted Lucy up and turned her over so he could jar her on the back, careful not to hurt her, and hoped gravity would do most of the work. She felt insubstantial like this. Small and fragile. Not the kind of girl that would come to Hell.

_Remember how angry she was when you tried to do all the rough work?_ Back in Magnolia, when people with blonde hair and brown eyes had been turning up mutilated. She didn't want to be a damsel then and she didn't want to be one now. She wanted to slash through Hell and fight infamous demons. She wanted to rewrite what fate had written.

_She's like you._ Barging into where she didn't belong, mucking things up. _And like Zeref_. Ignoring the rules of life and death to bring him back to her side.

She had to live. She was the best parts of all of them.

Lucy sputtered after a moment and rejected all the water she'd swallowed. It was a messy affair that went on for an exceptional amount of time. How could one person swallow so much water and live? He thought he should be grateful for it, though.

Loke let out a nervous, thankful laugh. Then he seemed to remember something. He searched the river. _For Zeref,_ Natsu remembered.

Zeref clung to an island in the centre. Three sets of skeletal hands reached out of the water and tried to drag him down. He pushed at them with his magic but he was losing the battle. His fingers slipped and he went under again.

"Help him," Loke barked.

But all Natsu could think was, _why?_

Loke swore and raced down the riverbank. Selfless. _That used to be you_. The thought was unemotional and startling. He couldn't pinpoint why _,_ though.

Lucy stopped coughing and started shivering. Natsu focused on making her warm, using a little bit of fire to swirl around them. Fireflies came from the crannies and zipped in and out of the flames, adding to the curtain to keep out the rest of Hell.

Lucy lifted herself up on quivering arms and got to her knees. Her eyes were the warmest things he'd ever seen, large and dark and full of an emotion he thought he used to know. She grabbed his shabby clothing and pulled him against her. Then she started to cry. Natsu put his arms around her back and held her close.

* * *

Zeref was near limp when Loke was finally able to stretch out on a ledge of rock and snag him. He came up like a sack full of water and laid there on the bank, looking up at the fathomless ceiling with water streaming out of his mouth, black as ink. He was more shredded than he'd been in his coffin. He'd been wearing clothes but now they were rags. Loke could see where the knife _had_ been, sticking him through the heart.

"Where is it? The Queen's knife?" It was the most important thing now.

Zeref turned up his hand, revealing it, and croaked, "She nearly dropped it."

_Because she'd nearly died._ Loke didn't want to hear it said. He didn't even want to _think_ of it. "Will they make it out?" He wanted candour and strangely, Zeref was the only one he trusted to give it to him.

Zeref let his head drop back to the stone. "If anyone can, it's Natsu." He half smiled. It withered. "Where is the crone?"

The Gleaner, he meant. "She ripped out one of Natsu's memories and left."

Zeref turned his head; Loke followed his gaze. There was a firestorm where Natsu and Lucy knelt. In between the licks of orange flame, Loke saw Lucy was sitting up and clutching Natsu. Loke was once more an outsider.

Zeref asked, "What did the crone take?"

"The first time he felt love."

Zeref closed his eyes and laughed ruefully. It graded on Loke's nerves.

"Why is that funny?"

He stopped laughing but still smiled. "When I was cursed, I gave up on feeling love. It only brought me more pain. And Natsu willingly casts it away. Ankhseram is still laughing at me, even now, punishing me through my brother." He sighed. "The gods are predictably cruel."

Loke chewed his cheek, considering what Natsu's sacrifice would mean for him in his future. Would he be stunted, half human, unable to remember _how_ to love? Would he forget the purpose of it?

_Will Lucy_ let _him?_ was the more important question, and the answer to that was obviously no. Lucy was a dog with a bone. She wanted her Natsu back and she was going to get it, come Hell or high water. Literally.

Zeref seemed to be thinking the same thing as Loke. He looked at Lucy but he was seeing another girl. "Maybe things would have been different for me if I had what he has before it was too late."

_Maybe._

"Does she know the coming cost?"

Loke thought of the Demon Mother's head telling him, ' _Blood and pain. Cut the demon with the Queen's knife. Soak the key in his strife. But to call him day by day, Hell requires the balance be paid._ '

_A life for a life._

He had a feeling not just any would do.

"She has enough to worry about. I'll take care of everything."

Zeref understood sacrifice and, emotionless, held up the knife. Hell's floors chose that moment to quiver. Something was coming. _Not something,_ Loke thought. _The Queen._ She was coming for them all and she wouldn't be satisfied until she had their blood on her knobby hands.

Natsu's fire went away. Lucy still clutched him, the thorn in his skin, bloodletting. Her cheeks were pink with life. Her clothing was nearly dry. She looked worried, though, with her hand on Natsu's cheek. Loke imagined she was looking to see what exactly it was in him that had changed since their last meeting such a short time ago. It wasn't something that could be seen with the naked eye.

There wasn't time to worry about that now. The river was bulging like a wound gone septic, filling with something white. _Bones._ Bones were coming down the river. Bones were piling up on the bottom, making a macabre castle from which the Queen of Bone would emerge.

She felt more powerful now than she had before. She was angry.

Natsu stood and helped Lucy, too. Loke mimicked them and felt his exhausting deep in his bones. _You pushed it too far._ Long, long ago was _too far._ Back when they'd fought Brandish, well before coming to Hell.

He wasn't going to be too much use to Lucy, not weakened from his time apart from the celestial realm and aching like an addict for the power Natsu's book granted him, however unwillingly. There was one way to make sure they won the fight, though.

Zeref was still holding up the knife, expecting him to act. Loke took its leather and bone grip in his hand. It was ancient and _felt_ powerful. This knife had tortured many souls. Taken many lives. Performed great and horrible deeds. It had belonged to the Queen forever it seemed, but it was older than her, too; Loke felt it. As old as Hell itself, maybe.

Loke staggered to Lucy. It was hard walking, the ground was shaking, the river was sloshing up on the banks. Sometimes, the water would touch him and he'd be assaulted by a memory. Some were recent, the bottom of alleys, jostling with girls he didn't know just to get away from things he had no business feeling, black hotel rooms, where all of his drunk work was undone with a simple touch of Lucy's hand or a smile. Those memories mutated effortlessly into Lucy's sadness and his own helplessness to make it better again.

Those thoughts exhausted themselves and more ancient memories washed over him, the great and terrible things he'd done at the behest of his many masters.

Bone spilled from the riverbed to the shores. They gathered themselves together and an almost spot-on impersonation of Lucy erupted. She was the Lucy he'd spent night after night comforting, thick with her lover's child, sadness in her eyes.

"Loke," she spoke, and he knew this handmaiden was better than the one from the library. She'd gotten everything just right. "Loke, don't fight us. Lay down the knife. Come with me. Please. I love you."

Loke kept his eyes stitched to the _real_ Lucy. She did not see the handmaiden as he did, she saw some grotesque beast, probably, reaching for him, whispering sweet words with a voice that sounded like sickness.

_She is all that and worse_ , Loke thought diligently. _Do not be lured like a fly to honey._ A fly to rotting meat. _All of it is fake._

" _Loke_ ," the handmaiden hissed. "Look at me."

Loke felt his eyes drifting her way and bit his cheek until the saccharine taste of blood filled his mouth. His head cleared and he called on his magic. It wasn't really _his_ magic that answered, though. It was the light that had been stained with Natsu's darkness, the power of his book again reaching through and commanding something in Loke to change. To become better suited to this environment. _You're adapting_ , he thought. His power changed with the power of his master, and Lucy's was undergoing some kind of metamorphosis. To be the mage she needed to be to save the man she loved.

_We're all so hopelessly connected now,_ Loke thought as his magic burned up the thing that pretended to be Lucy. He couldn't do it all the way, though. Hell had yet to make him as ruthless as Natsu. She screamed and collapsed back into the bone pile. Loke took his moment of reprieve to scrabble to Lucy's side. The Queen was coming and they needed to act quickly.

"Give me Natsu's key."

Lucy didn't question him, producing the key Eileen fabricated for her. Loke felt its magic when he closed his hand around it, but it was directionless. It needed to be imprinted with its spirit.

Loke grabbed Natsu's arm and turned it upwards. His skin was cold and toughened with scales that bit into Loke's fingers and made him bleed. Loke saw a flicker of uncertainty pass behind Natsu's eyes. He didn't have the luxury of being unsure now, though. The Queen was emerging from the river, the picture of violence, and her sights were set on them.

She'd acquired a few new injuries since Loke had seen her last and he was glad. Her face was split near in two on one side and her chest had a hole carved into it. The space beyond was a nasty black hole that writhed with maggots. She was losing them by the dozen. Sometimes, she'd stick out a grey, hairy tongue and lap one up, bursting it between her teeth as if in defiance.

The ground started going soft beneath Loke's feet. He willed himself not to look down so he didn't have to see the mountain of bone appearing beneath him or the skeletal hands that wanted to drag him down.

Zeref's magic choked those beasts and then the Queen. Loke caught glimpses from the corner of his eye, the Queen backpedaling towards the river, shadows ensnaring her throat. Then he heard a wet puncturing. Lucy gasped Zeref's name. Natsu's claws bit into Loke's arm, leaving marks that would scar.

"Do it." Natsu didn't seem uncertain any longer.

Loke didn't remember his own binding but he knew this was the easy part, and the moments afterwards, too. The hard parts were in the spaces between masters, the eventual acceptance that they would live on forever, never changing, loving and loving again while each person they were attached to was swept away by Time.

Lucy stepped away from them to help Zeref. She didn't have anything to help with, though. Her whip wasn't with her, and no other magic would come to her, not here, not now.

Natsu said, "Do it, Loke."

Loke didn't think about the things he'd be giving up, too. If he did, he wouldn't be able to follow through with it. there were too many unknowns to consider, and fear lived in those cruxes.

The blade was sharp and bit into Natsu's skin through the scales. He hissed and flexed his grip, cutting Loke's arm deeper. Loke took Natsu's key and pressed it against Natsu's skin, waiting for the Scarlet Despair's enchantment to work, waiting for the Demon Mother's words to be true.

It was just an onyx key soaking in blood too dark. Natsu met Loke's eyes. "Is there an enchantment or something?"

"I don't know." He was starting to panic. He flipped the key over, stuck it in further. Natsu watched Lucy and Zeref behind Loke, his expression tight. Loke couldn't help it, he looked on, too.

The Queen scuttled toward Lucy with her mouth open in a feral scream. Zeref pushed her back and she turned on him instead. They went down, the Queen trying to skewer him with one of her sharp tarsal claws and Zeref hitting her over and over again with magic and his fists.

It was difficult to say who had the upper hand, they were almost evenly matched. _Because darkness cannot destroy darkness, not in Hell,_ or some nonsense, the Gleaner said. _Only light guiding darkness._

Lucy was struggling to be that light. Loke felt her scraping together every bit of magic she could manage. It wouldn't be enough on her own, though.

Natsu started pulling away from Loke. Loke grabbed his arm tighter and held him there. "You're not leaving until this works." Because if he did, none of them was getting out.

Lucy squealed, making every muscle in Loke's body tense. _I will no look._ Natsu was, though, and he looked tortured. Flame curled around his arm, burning Loke and his clothes. Fireflies descended like little beasts that fed off Natsu's calamity and basked in it.

Magic pulsed through Hell like a drumbeat. _Finally,_ something miraculous was happening. Natsu's blood was getting absorbed into the key like it was a sponge. The metal superheated in Loke's hand, so hot, he had to drop it.

Natsu opened his mouth to ask a question. It never came out. He disappeared. Winked out. Like he'd never been there at all. The key tinkered metallically on the ground and his book fell alongside it.

"Hell." Loke snatched up the book and tried to get the key, too. The ground bucked beneath him and he was airborne, flying backwards, into the fray. The air was knocked from his lungs when he hit the ground. Hell groaned and the light of Natsu's fireflies was snuffed out. All sound was, too. Except for bone scraping on bone.

Loke forced his lungs to expand and scrabbled to his feet. A soft blue light emanated from the River of Forgetting, casting the Queen in its glow. She was monstrous, nightmare fuel. Sagging and dropping crawlies and coming for him. He looked around for his company but there was a wall of stone separating them on all sides, fifty feet tall, at least. He was on his own.

"The way you treated my handmaiden was almost kind, Lion. Have I found a sympathizer?"

Loke wanted to clutch his ears, her voice was so abrasive.

"Give me the book and the knife and I'll give you what you want."

Another fake Lucy marionetted up from a bone hoard and creeped towards him like she was made of slinkies, the momentum of one step propelling her into the next.

Loke burned this one, too. She fell into the bone pile without a sound. "I don't want this." Firmly, like he meant it.

"Too fake for you? You want the real deal?" The Queen's eyes turned luminous, glowing with malevolence. "Let me kill the slut and her _prince,_ " so much malcontent, "She'll return here for good, he'll go away forever. I'll give her to you. All of her little broken bits so you have something to put back together again. That's the part you love, isn't it? The part that needs you?"

" _No_." It sounded a little too forced, even to himself.

_"It's okay. It's just us here. You can say it_." Somehow, the Queen was _there,_ whispering in his ear. How had she gotten so close? She smelled like gangrene and unrealistic promise. She smelled like Hell. She touched his arms and visions roared though Loke's head. Back alley strangers now had a familiar face, they cried out with a familiar voice, they grabbed his arms with familiar hands and scratched ecstasy into his skin.

_No,_ Loke thought. _No._ Not like this. Not ever like this.

" _The_ _book and the knife, Lion_." The Queen tried to wrestle them from his arms. Loke slashed at her with the knife and stepped back at the same time. One of her eight legs severed and her gait turned lopsided. She screamed a banshee's cry and stormed him in earnest, pushing him back and onto the ground. Loke pushed at her; her teeth gnashed for his face. He got his arm between them and felt her bite straight to bone. Loke's head spun with agony. He slashed with the knife again, getting her in the neck badly enough that a massive slit opened. Her throat gaped like a smile and more maggots dropped out. Loke couldn't scream. He turned his head to the side and tried to outlast it.

The air was suddenly stolen and heat blistered Loke's skin. Bits of bone and maggots burst and cooked. Lucy, the _real_ Lucy, was there, and she looked like a reckoning, glowing and furious. Loke felt a burst of her magic come through him. The wound on his shoulder that had slowly been turning septic began to heal.

"Don't ever touch him," Lucy commanded. Natsu stepped out from behind her, teeth clenched, eyes emotionless, fires blazing, a real hellfire spirit. The Queen took a step back. Loke felt hope. The real battle had arrived.


	17. Chapter 17

Fire licked at Lucy's hands and eddied around her feet, no longer temperamental but there for her to command. _Waiting_ for her to command. The drain she'd been feeling since getting out from beneath the sky and into Hell's monotonous caverns slipped away like sand through the gaps in her fingers. She was untouchable because _Natsu_ was untouchable.

 _Is this how he always feels?_ she wondered.

The Queen of Bone loomed over Loke. There was fear in her eyes. Lucy had _waited_ for her to feel that way, but now that it'd happened, she didn't feel jubilant. Fearfulness wrought danger and the Queen's closest target was Loke. He was already bleeding heavily from his arm, where the Queen had bitten him.

Lucy gave him all the energy she possibly could and felt it pour into him. He perked up like he was dying of thirst and her magic was the answer. Loke glowed and it was almost like it used to be, but instead of the light of the stars fueling him, it was Hell's glow. Natsu's power moving through Lucy, moving through Loke.

The Queen swayed left on seven delicate legs, the eighth severed and returned to the bone pile, and attacked. Loke put up his arms to protect his face, baring the Queen's knife while still protecting Natsu's book. He gouged at her eye socket, tearing open more of her dead skin. She ignored however painful that must have been and snatched him up like he weighed nothing at all. Rearing back on her two back legs, she folded around him like a cage, holding him closer than a lover. He couldn't move.

Lucy felt paralyzed. _She_ felt untouchable. That didn't mean Loke was, though. He could still hurt. And be forced back into the celestial realm. He was the whole reason she'd made it this far. She couldn't be without him.

Her horror multiplied when the Queen of Bone summoned her handmaidens. They came up from the bones, rotten flowers sprouting from a rotten earth, and grabbed at Loke. He'd been struggling against the Queen but the moment they laid hands on him, he stiffened and went still.

They pulled at his clothing and tore at his skin, trying to get at the book and the knife he still had clutched in his hands.

"Natsu," Lucy commanded and he stepped forward. He wasn't her lover at that moment or her friend. He was a weapon, doing as she commanded. She only had to think and he reacted. His fires were red and gold, hot and cold, and brutal. Bones and maggots burned up, parts of the river still able to flow for all the bone that choked it evaporated.

The Queen of Bone screeched and released her prize. Loke fell and got to his feet. His chest and arms and back were ribbons. He would carry the mark of the handmaidens forever if he didn't heal soon. He faced the Queen with his magic bared. She made a golem out of bone to protect her from his wrath. It burst apart.

Natsu tried next, making a firestorm Lucy didn't know if any of them could survive, it was so brutally hot. She clutched Natsu's new key in her fist and closed her eyes and hoped for the best. There was screaming, the Queen and Loke and Zeref. _And me,_ Lucy thought. That was her voice in the mix. Hell was not cold enough for an assault like that.

Natsu let up a beat later. When Lucy could stand to open her eyes, everything looked scorched, blackened stone and bone and skin. The Queen used to have stringy hair, it was all burned off now. Her wounds were cauterized and most of her flesh had a leathery integument.

Her lips cracked and split like dried parchment when she opened her mouth to growl. She tipped her head back and closed her eyes. The ground bubbled and bones from all over Hell came to her. Large ones. Familiar ones.

They'd been cleaned by the imps, but Lucy knew the horned shape of Tobach's head, the javelin shoots off his scales, the alligator whip of his tail. He had no eyes and his jaw was held in by a prayer. The Queen's dark magic.

His head swivelled and so did his arms. In a blink, he snagged both Loke and Natsu and began not just squeezing them, but flailing them to the earth as though they were ragdolls.

While they were occupied, demons from the prison in the Queen's library reappeared, funneling out of the Queen's bone piles as well, reminding Lucy of ants, wielding knives and grim mouths. Lucy waited for them to come after her but they were focused on the Queen. They surrounded her like crones bending over a table and started piecing her back together, bit by bit, as though she were a patchwork quilt.

Lucy watched on, horrified, as one demon with diaphanous wings came at another with black and red skin. It shucked it out of its hide, cutting away big chunks of skin and placing it on the Queen's body. Some terrible magic made it stick to her in a way that reminded Lucy of melting marshmallows, piecing her back together again.

Lucy _knew_ she should strike while she could, but she was fascinated into a state of immobility. The whole thing was over in seconds. Bodies lay on the ground, wet and pink without their skin, moaning or dead. Any that could not stand beside the Queen slowly started to decay, turning to bone, getting pulled into the Queen again. All the rest fanned out around her, an army ready for her command.

The last piece of the puzzle was the scalp the Queen took from a demon with hair like corn silk. She rested it on her head, a wet crown that moulded with her body. Her cheeks fattened and glowed, her lips filled out. And when she opened her eyes, they were brown.

Lucy didn't like looking at herself, complete with a swollen belly.

"What do you think, little star?"

"You're disgusting." Lucy kept Natsu in her periphery, concerned but not brave enough to take her eye off the Queen for even a second—she was like a virus, looking for any weakness. Tobach had stopped slinging them around, for now, as far as Lucy could tell. Fires were blazing. Loke was swearing.

"Is that so? I want to show you something, little star. Pay attention." The Queen smiled and grabbed her naked abdomen, sticking her fingers into her belly button and digging in. And in. And in. Then she began to pull it apart. Like opening a book. Splitting the pages to see the spine. Or the baby, in this case.

As though it were a seed pulled from a pod, it fell onto the ground, placenta, blood, some clear fluid. It flailed, reminding Lucy of a fish dying in a sack. The Queen made sure she held Lucy's eyes when she stepped on it, squishing. Blood burst in all directions.

Lucy felt too faint to make a sound. Black spots darted in and out of her vision.

"What is the matter, little star? Does this bother you?"

Lucy heard the Queen's foot come down again. Damn protecting herself, she could not look. She stepped back and into a body, cold like Hell. One of the Queen's minions had gotten behind her. Its arms encircled her, long and thin, vine-like.

She was in trouble, she knew, the moment the arms started tightening, constricting her lungs to the point where she could not draw air, but before she could do anything more than recognize her peril, the body was rendered. Bits of meat, blood, other horror, all spattered behind and beside her. Black magic. Zeref's magic. She'd forgotten about him completely.

He stepped forward now, magic stretching out from him like one hundred black threads, grabbing the Queen's army and twisting their heads off their bodies, stabbing them through the heart, tearing them asunder however he dictated.

No one screamed, it happened so fast. When Zeref called his magic back to him, there was destruction and waste and the Queen of Bone looking livid once more, standing over a mess, stomach open and writhing with maggots.

"Is this your strategy? You'll destroy my army? I will bring them back and we'll go through it all again and again until you're so exhausted, you can barely move. Best just to lie down, Demon _King_ ," the Queen mocked. "It's about time we expedited your submission."

"Or you can quit this vendetta before you're destroyed," Zeref parried.

The Queen's response was to lift three of her seven legs and the beasts Zeref had torn apart started putting themselves back together again. It was a horror show come to life, beings moving like puppets on strings, meat and bone and sinew reuniting. And more. _Things_ without skin crawled from the bone piles, looking at Lucy and Zeref without eyes in their heads, without tongues in their mouths, moving without visible muscle or tendons.

They surrounded Lucy and Zeref in an inevitable shuffle and started to attack. Zeref held them back where he could, reducing crowds of them to pieces. They would just get right back up again, the same as before, uninjured.

Two of the Queen of Bone's minions made it through Zeref's guard at the back. Lucy fumbled at her waist before she remembered her whip was somewhere lost in the river. She looked for Natsu or Loke next, her other two weapons, but all she saw was the back of Tobach's robust skeleton. She backed up until she hit Zeref. Distantly, she was aware that he was still sopping wet from the river. The water draped memories on her, distant and unpleasant, like the fluttering of moth wings against your skin in the dark. It was easier to push these memories aside, she wasn't submerged in them, not like before, but it was distracting.

Zeref was suddenly torn away from Lucy. She stumbled back and would have fallen, except skeletal hands closed on her wrists and dug in. She was yanked back up, into the waiting arms of a creature with teeth like nails, long and sharp and silver, widely spaced apart. Its jaw unhinged so wide, it could fit her neck in its mouth.

A millisecond before it tore into Lucy, a bright light blazed through Hell. Lucy squinted against it, feeling Natsu's magic flare _through_ her. For an instant, the fire was hers. Her attacker turned to ash.

Lucy had no time to marvel at her new abilities. Large shards of bone began raining down. _Tobach_. Natsu and Loke had destroyed him. She crouched down and lifted her arms over her head to protect herself against the torrent. Pieces as large as boulders splashed into the River of Forgetting or landed at the Queen's feet. The ground shook with its force. Any minion still left alive scrabbled for safety. Some didn't make it and got crushed, their bones spiraling out and joining the chaos, like hollow eggshells breaking beneath the force of a hammer strike.

It was over quickly and in the aftermath, the Queen's ugly expression only got uglier, jaw unhinging and the skin on her face sagging. It cost her something to make all these beasts, Lucy realized, and with each one they killed, a bit more of her momentum was stolen.

Lucy felt Natsu come to stand beside her and unfurled. He helped her get to her feet. Loke, looking singed, took to her other side, leaning his shoulder against hers in a supportive way. She leaned into him slightly, too, and hoped it didn't let on how shaken she actually was.

The Queen screamed and started lifting her spider legs again, to call another wave of dead. Zeref's magic lashed her many legs like ropes, preventing it. The bones wiggled at her feet but that was all.

"It's no use," Zeref said. "It's over."

The Queen stopped writhing to rasp, "Now what?"

"You join the dead," Zeref explained.

"Will you destroy me and upset Hell's balance?"

"That's the idea, yes. Or, I suppose more accurately, Lucy will."

Falling beneath the Queen's attentive gaze was like being walked on by a thousand millipedes. Lucy hunched her shoulders unthinkingly.

"That human? Why would you ever think she'd succeed where so many others had failed?"

"The Gleaner," Loke said. "She told us how to destroy you."

For an instant, uncertainty flitted across the Queen's sagging face. She tucked it away. "She lacks the nerve to kill a bound and weakened foe. Don't you, little star?" Another sharp-toothed smile. Revulsion bubbled in Lucy's stomach. "She'll want a fair fight."

"Except, you'll never fight fair," Lucy added and earned herself a rare, grim smile from Zeref.

The bones wriggled again as the Queen reached out for them. Zeref's magic tightened and wrenched her back at the same time a skeletal beast rose up beside Loke and attacked, its target clear: it wanted the knife he still coveted.

They struggled for a millisecond. Then Loke hissed and was thrown to the ground and the beast started barreling towards Lucy, knife clutched in the cage of its bony claws.

"Now, Lucy!" Zeref commanded and she felt the thread of Natsu's magic, bright and hot.

Fire like a tidal wave rushed from Natsu and surrounded the Queen and started to burn her from the outside in. Lucy couldn't watch the entire thing, it was too stifling, too gruesome, too _close_ to her. She could feel everything, including Natsu's grim pleasure, filling the dead space inside of him, where something important had been until very recently. A gaping hole that threatened him.

The blaze reached an uncomfortable temperature before it started to wind down and Lucy could breathe again. She took in air greedily and surveyed the damage.

The River of Forgetting was still thick with bone and likely would stay that way until some outside force flushed it. On the river's banks was ash, the odd charred bone, and a few teeth—all that was left of the Queen of Bone. Her minions were mostly same, piles a strong breeze could take away, except for a few here and there, that found shelter.

Loke nudged a pile of ash with his shoe and churned up the Queen's knife. He picked it up carefully, swapping from hand to hand because the metal was too hot.

One of the survivors, a demon with gold lips and eyes and fingernails and skin like black tissue paper, cautiously walked to the Queen's pile and fished from it the Queen's burned bones. Holding them between its hands, it closed its eyes. The Queen's remains lifted and swirled and rearranged into a crown. The beast dropped to one knee and offered it to Lucy. It felt poisonous, filthy with magic and malice. "A true Queen has a crown, Your Majesty."

Lucy started to accept it because that's what you did when someone offered you something. Natsu caught her hand and shook his head. The beast looked between them, confused. "The crown is rightfully yours."

"You can't go home if you take that, girl," warned a voice from the river. Lucy spied the persimmon eyes of the Gleaner.

And she didn't belong in Hell.

"If you don't accept it, there will be competition," said the beast.

"Zeref will rule in my place," Lucy proclaimed.

A murmur went through the Queen's defeated army. Even the Gleaner seemed surprised. Lucy took the crown from the beast's hands and approached Zeref like one approached an alligator. He searched her eyes. "I know who I can be when I have power and an army."

"Good. Then you'll know how to avoid that."

He ducked his head after a moment and Lucy settled the crown on his brow. It dug into his skin like thorns so it would never part.

Exhaustion hit Lucy all at once. She staggered. Natsu caught her and supported her weight. She leaned into him and let herself feel tired.

* * *

Lucy didn't remember travelling from the River of Forgetting. She had closed her eyes, blocking out the overflowing river, and opened them again looking at a familiar cave. A garden of brimstone. She was cushioned against Natsu's chest, breathing in his actinic scent and getting warmed by small firefly demons. Faeries. Their fires were out while they perched on her, picking up locks of her hair and examining it. One started to pull like it was going to try to fly off with it. Another chittered at it loudly, scolding its companion.

"Cut it out," Natsu rumbled, bringing Lucy fully awake.

The little demons dropped their prize and darted into the air. They disappeared into one of the many holes in the ceiling.

"What were they saying?" Lucy asked.

Natsu tucked his chin to his chest so he could see her. "They haven't seen anyone like you before—everyone that comes here is dead. They like it."

She smiled. "They're warm."

Natsu pulled her closer. "How are you feeling?"

She did an assessment before answering. Still drained, but that was probably just being pregnant. "I'm okay. How are you?"

"I'm fine." Which he would have said even if he wasn't. Lucy looked for that missing piece in him and still found it, buried deep. Holes like that didn't just close.

"There's a demon who guards the River of Forgetting, where it enters Hell," Natsu blurted like he'd been waiting _forever_ to disseminate the news, thoroughly distracting her.

"Okay."

"Zeref and Loke went to bargain with her. For you. So you can go home."

"For us," Lucy said. _For us._ It dawned on her that she'd won. Natsu was bound to the key Lady Eileen had made for her, and they were on the verge of escaping Hell. Take that, Fate. Nothing could quell her smile.

Natsu was just as sombre as ever.

"Aren't you happy?"

"No one leaves Hell," he said to the ceiling.

"We do." In a fashion. When she didn't have Natsu's gate open, she assumed he'd return here to rejuvenate, the way Loke returned to the celestial realm. But anytime he needed her or she needed him, all he had to do was walk through a gate.

He looked down again and touched her cheek. "Sorry. This still doesn't feel real. I keep waiting for the Queen of Bone to show and rip it all away."

"The Queen is dead." Lucy leaned into his scaled palm and cupped it. "And she's not coming back. We protected each other." Just like she promised they would. "And we're together."

"Like you and Loke are," Natsu said experimentally.

"In a way." Someone had put Natsu's key on a thong around her neck. She lifted it now and studied its filigree. She'd looked at it a hundred times before but somehow, it looked different now that it was attached to Natsu. Or Natsu was attached to it. It blazed orange-red in between the onyx steel and was warm to the touch.

Lucy looked into his eyes again. "I love you."

Natsu's thumb rolled over her cheek once, sharp, but not sharp enough to break her skin. Lucy pulled him down into a kiss and curled into him, like two commas fitting together, yet that same tooth-socket feeling was back. She looked for the missing piece. It was a needle in a haystack, ever out of her reach.

Lucy felt Loke before she saw him and reluctantly leaned away from Natsu just as he came around the corner, into the red glow of the fireflies that seemed part and parcel wherever Natsu went. He had an air of success to him that raised Lucy's spirits and quelled the worry she felt. Zeref was behind him, looking darkly royal, crowned, straight-backed. Perhaps tigers truly couldn't change their stripes. Zeref would always be meant for dark things in dark places, and they would be meant for him.

Lucy looked at Zeref's crown. The Queen had never had one. She worried for him and this seemingly new tradition. Would it put him in danger?

Then she scolded herself. Not only was this Hell, and _always_ dangerous, but so was Zeref. He seemed married to strife. He'd spent his first months in Hell _hunting_ demons, in fact. He'd been lost without a battle to fight, and when Natsu wasn't with her, he'd be back here, with Zeref. He wouldn't be alone.

"Everything is arranged. Styx will ferry you from Hell," Zeref informed them. "We need to leave now, though."

Lucy got as quickly to her feet as possible. Loke grabbed her hand halfway up and steadied her. Natsu rose slower, still waiting for the carpet to be yanked out from under him, for the Queen to leap up and yell, "Surprise!" Lucy squeezed his arm once in encouragement. He touched her back briefly. "Why would she agree to help?"

"Word travels fast." Loke nodded to Zeref's new crown, the Queen of Bone's bones protruded skywards off his head, black and splintered and dangerous-looking.

Natsu's lips pressed together grimly. "Where do we go?"

"This way." Zeref took the lead.

They went single-file, out of the cave Natsu had called home and into a part of Hell Lucy hadn't seen before. It was an open landscape with huge bioluminescent fungus and shallow valleys where the River of Forgetting split a hundred different ways. Some tributaries moved fast, others just hobbled along, the water dark and unforgiving. Lucy was careful where she stepped; she'd had enough assault lately.

The mushrooms turned giant, towering beasts with gills large enough to get lost in and hyphae that broke apart the ground as they reached down and stabilized the huge stalks.

Lucy watched one of Natsu's faeries got too close and get stuck to the mushroom's stalk like it was made of glue. It struggled, firmly trapped, a fly on sticky paper, then went abruptly limp.

"Poison," Natsu warned Lucy. She was extra careful about staying clear of that, too.

Loke took Lucy's wrist and squeezed it gently, tugging her out of rhythm with Natsu. She let it happen because Loke looked so grave

"Is everything alright?" Lucy asked in a voice that was nearly taken away by the rushing river.

"Yes. I just needed to talk to you about something," Loke said just as quietly. He wouldn't meet her eyes for any extended amount of time and seemed to have a difficult time finding a way to hold his arms. Crossed? Uncrossed? Bent? In his hair, ruffling it? She could feel the turmoil coming off him.

Lucy took his hand out of his hair and held it like she always had. "Whatever it is, you can tell me."

"Natsu gave the Gleaner the memory of the first time he felt loved," Loke said with zero preamble now that he was committed. "And he's different because of it."

He _was_. She glanced that way. Broad shoulders, tousled hair, black eyes that crinkled at the corner for every time he laughed _before_. Something _was_ missing now. _Is it his smile?_ Or a warmth, maybe? Compassion? "I feel it, too. What does it mean?"

Loke's shoulders lifted with the force of his breath. "To be honest, I don't know. Just… be careful."

There was a time she would have dismissed his warning but Loke looked so severe, she couldn't. "I won't let him forget what— _who_ —he is."

Loke's smile wavered into place. "I know."

The river started to converge again, the streams all coming together into five large tributaries. Zeref and Natsu stopped at the top and Lucy and Loke caught up to them. Zeref said directly to the river, "We're ready."

Lucy nearly yelled when the river lifted up and held shape. It was distinctly female, no eyes, no mouth, though if it wasn't looking at her, she wasn't Lucy Heartfilia.

"This one will need to breathe. And care," Zeref added, looking Lucy's pregnant belly over with a fondness she memorized. Zeref. Zeref Dragneel. They were family now.

The river woman inclined her head and brought her hands together like she expected Lucy to step into them.

"Will I have memories?" Lucy asked. It didn't really matter at this point, to be honest; she'd pay her dues if it meant getting out of there, but some preparation was nice.

"Styx's magic should protect you," Zeref said.

Lucy expelled her breath and stepped forward. "Do I just…"

"Walk in," Zeref said.

Loke wiggled his hand out of hers. She replaced it with Natsu's. She held his eyes as they moved into the cold water. It lapped at her ankles and then her shins. No memories consumed her, though she felt them pressing at the edge of her mind, _wanting_ to.

She wouldn't be sad to get away from the Gleaner's magic.

"Don't stop until you've breached the human plane," Zeref ordered.

Styx nodded her featureless head.

Lucy turned to watch Hell and Zeref disappear and noticed Loke was still standing on the bank beside Zeref, eyes solemn and mouth set in a determined line. "What are you doing?"

He lifted his chin, determined, like he'd practiced this moment, played it all out in his mind. "We can't all go."

"Yes, we can," she said quickly; Styx was starting to close her arms around Lucy; the water was rising. If they didn't act quickly, Loke wouldn't be _able_ to come. She pushed at the black fingers, holding them back. "Just come here, there's room, she can carry us all."

Loke shook his head. "It's not that, and you know it."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Patiently, he said, "Remember when I told you magic like this comes at a price?"

That felt like a lifetime ago, sitting in her hotel room, sad and feeling alone, Loke kneeling before her, suggesting maybe there was a way to bring Natsu back.

"The Demon Mother told us there needs to be an equilibrium in all things," Loke said gently. "Hell will want payment for you taking one of its spirits. I volunteered to take Natsu's place."

"What about the celestial realm missing _your_ absence?" Lucy parroted back.

His eyes flitted to the ground to hide his shame. "The celestial realm's closed its doors to me. I can't go back."

It felt like the world had inverted. Without Natsu there to stabilize her, she might have fallen. "What?"

Loke looked at her again. "It's for the best, Lucy. Things are changing. _I'm_ changing. Or changed. I don't know. It's all very confusing." He held up his hand to help make his point, light sliding from his fingertips, black and red and just a little bit of white. He wasn't the same spirit that walked out of the celestial realm months ago.

"But you don't _belong_ in Hell," Lucy complained. Styx pushed against Lucy's hold and closed her hands a little more. The water rose a bit higher. Lucy spoke quickly, sensing her opportunity quickly disappearing. "Loke. I need you. Please." She reached for him. The water was like a barrier, holding her back. She needed to pull her arm in soon, or it would get stuck. "Please. Please don't."

"You knew there'd be sacrifices," he said.

"Not like this."

"Yes." He nodded. "Maybe you didn't want to believe it, but you knew, in your heart. You were going to have to give up something to have this. We talked about it. You were ready."

She did say that, didn't she? _She_ was supposed to be the one sacrificing, though, not Loke. It wasn't fair.

"This isn't right." Natsu moved forward like he was going to push through Styx's water and trade places with Loke. Zeref's magic smacked him square in the chest, sending him back so hard, he ended up on his behind.

"No more heroics," Zeref said. "Lucy and your son need you."

"This isn't forever," Loke followed against Natsu's protest. "We'll see each other again. Someday."

Life was rich in _somedays_ in Lucy's experience, and somedays had always short-changed her. "I don't want this, Loke."

"I do, though." And he sounded like he meant it. Loke had mulled it over. Perhaps while she was possessed by her missing, he'd spent his _entire time_ in Hell mulling it over. He seemed to know the cost would be high even before he left and really appreciated what that meant.

"Don't be sad for me, Lucy, and don't regret anything we did. We both knew what coming to Hell meant." Loke smiled.

It was like losing Aquarius all over again, but _worse_. She could have prevented this, maybe. Or figured out another way if she'd just paid _attention_.

Loke said, "You were the best master I could have asked for, I'm glad to have met you."

It was hard to see him now. Lucy's eyes were watering, and Styx's water was closing over them. Lucy pressed at them but could no longer move them at all. She'd been entertaining Lucy before. No longer. Lucy stuffed down her annoyance and helplessness to say the important things. "I'll see you again. And soon."

"I know."

"I'll fix this."

Loke's quarter smile was weak.

"I love you," she added, though she knew she shouldn't. It would only hurt him. But she loved _all_ of her spirits, and she needed him to know. "Be careful."

Then the black water closed over her, taking Loke's response. Styx and encircled them and they were on the move. It was dark and noisy, water rushing around them, sprinkling on them, but never soaking them. They were in a bubble, and the air inside smelled like rivers and rot.

Lucy tried to push on the side of the bubble like she could break through it and get back to Loke. She'd find a way to keep both him and Natsu. She could beat this; Fate wouldn't take another important piece of her.

Natsu's fingers closed on hers, bitingly sharp. He pulled her against him and they spent the rest of the ride with her chin tucked into his shoulder, her eyes burning and her cheeks wet.

* * *

Loke looked down the River of Forgetting for as long as he dared before turning to Zeref with the Queen of Bone's knife extended in his hand. "If you would?"

"It'll hurt," Zeref said.

"I don't know why people bother saying that," Loke complained. "Knowing what you're in for never makes it any better."

Zeref turned the knife in his hand thoughtfully. "I'm in your debt."

"And I'm in Lucy's."

"Hell might be a terrible place for a celestial spirit."

He was born for battle, though, and Hell was full of them. "I don't imagine I'll have very much time to worry about it."

"Not if you stay by me, as we discussed."

Zeref's offer of _General_ would have been ludicrous a year ago, but had felt so right when he presented it, Loke had said yes. "Do it."

Zeref gripped his shoulder and held his eyes while he stabbed Loke through the heart. There was a transferral of magic that happened after, but he was so sick and weak, he couldn't have said what happened.

* * *

Lucy's body was cold and stiff when the pressure changed and Lucy felt like she was being _squeezed_ through a hole much too small _._ They broke the surface and warm air touched her. _Summer_ air. The last time she'd been anywhere near home, it was still wintery. Which meant _months_ had passed.

She hit the ground without much force, on her backside. Natsu landed beside her, water dropping all around them like rain. Anywhere the River of Forgetting touched, the grass hissed and died.

With a groan, the crack in the earth she and Natsu had come out of closed up. Styx abandoned them without a glance. Lucy closed her fists, clutching the grass beneath her fingers. Crickets and frogs croaked, a nighthawk sang and Hell was a distant memory. A heavy moon drooped above, sliding over where the Lion constellation should be.

Lucy fumbled for Loke's key, hit by sudden inspiration. If he would not leave Hell willingly, she would pull him out of there. But just as soon as she touched its metal, it disintegrated.

* * *

Cool hands touching his forehead brought Loke back around. He opened his eyes and saw tawny-coloured hair and dark brown eyes.

"Hullo, Lion." She was still scorched from Loke's earlier assault by the river. The handmaiden he couldn't quite burn out completely.

"You're not real," he said immediately, looking at her freckled nose and her soft-looking lips.

"I'm as real as you want me to be," she replied.

 _Very_. Pity, his first moments in Hell were already bending him. "Are you here to kill me?" Zeref wasn't anywhere to be seen and he didn't know if he could fight her off on his own; he still felt weirdly drained, though it was getting better with every passing second. _Because you're not drawing your magic from the stars anymore,_ Loke thought. It made him feel weirdly inverted. He didn't know who he was just then.

"I could never kill you. I love you," she said sincerely and he thought of the creature in the River of Forgetting, caressing his cheek, luring him in with sweet words, _knowing_ him.

He pushed at the memory.

"Shouldn't you be gone with the Queen of Bone?"

"We served her. We weren't _of_ her, though."

Another pity.

"Let me take care of you until you feel like yourself again."

Loke sighed and put his head on her lap. She pushed his hair back from his forehead. Only sometimes would her façade slip and he'd feel the sharp bones in her fingers rather than soft skin.


	18. Chapter 18

A low stucco ceiling hung over Natsu's head, stained by cigarette smoke, spider webs drooping from the corners. He'd seen ceilings like this before, in motels exactly like this one, and yet, he couldn't stop marvelling at it as though this was the first of its kind. There wasn't anything like this in Hell.

Light spilled across the floor. Lucy came out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel. She smelled of iron-rich water and cheap soap. The shadows of night hid most of her distress but Natsu could hear her sniffling. She'd been crying in the shower. He was surprised she'd kept it together long enough to shamble into town and get a room, honestly. She never used to try to bottle her emotions up or hide them behind closed doors.

Natsu moved over for her on the bed. She looked at him and her eyes glowed brightly. Another wave of tears. She swallowed them down, throat bobbing, and shuffled over. Her waddle had gotten more pronounced in the last few hours they'd been in the human realm, like all the time she'd spent in Hell was catching up with her.

She dropped the towel on the floor and dust bunnies fled. Her skin glowed in the darkness. She had her celestial keys around her throat. She'd transferred them to her neckless shortly after arriving from Hell as if she couldn't bear the thought of being apart from them. His key kicked around at the end, darker and more sinister-looking than the rest.

Lucy caught him looking and clutched her keys as if to shield them from him. It was strange, he felt her hand around his key like he would feel it around his arm. Her touch was warm and soft. Being connected to her like this was like nothing he'd ever experienced before.

"Lie down."

Lucy pulled back the covers and got in. Natsu slid his hand through her damp hair and didn't scratch her. His claws were gone; his scales only an outline on his skin, like a tattoo. He knew with a thought they'd come back. This newfound control was all Lucy's doing, he'd bet. He manifested as she wanted him to, not quite beast, not quite man.

Lucy curved into his touch like a flower toward sunlight. Her hand closed over his before he could pull away and trapped him there, the tips of his fingers in her hair, his thumb brushing the bottom of her lip. She didn't feel _real_. None of this felt real. He thought she was gone forever. He thought he was doomed to a life of torment. He couldn't figure out what he did to deserve this. But then the memory of Loke's sacrifice paraded all over the warm glow that was trying to blossom and he remembered to be contrite.

"How are you feeling?" asked Lucy.

"I should be asking you that." And he hadn't. Loke probably would have. He vowed to do better. To be all things to her, so Loke's sacrifice wasn't in vain. "Are you okay?"

Lucy's smile was wobbly. "I'm sad. And I'm happy. And I don't understand how I can be consumed by both."

He didn't, either. Deep exploration of complex emotion had never been his forte. He just knew he wanted her to be happy. And if she couldn't be happy, at least be at peace. "Loke's okay." He felt it. When Natsu had died and gone to Hell, he'd connected to it in a way he couldn't understand, and he knew that Loke wasn't available to Lucy anymore, but he was in Hell, living, and he at least was satisfied with his decision. Some would tell her she was lucky to be loved so deeply. Natsu would never be one of those people, though. Lucy would think it a curse.

Lucy wiped at her cheeks with the backs of her palms. Her breath quavered. She swallowed another wave of tears. "He'll be okay, right?"

As okay as anyone was in Hell, Natsu imagined. "He wanted to be there. He'll fight."

Lucy smiled bigger like if she moved her mouth more, it might reach her eyes. "He was getting tired of all the boring _safe_ days he spent with me."

Natsu brushed her hair back again. "When I go back, I'll make sure he's okay."

Her mouth went flat. "When are you going back?"

"Not until you say so." Her hair was corn silk tickling his palm. He loved the feel of her.

"But you'll come back, right? When I call you?"

"You know how the magic works," he reminded her gently. "I'll be there whenever you need me, for long as you need me." Before the baby came and after.

Lucy's muscles loosened. "Yes. I know. I'm sorry. I don't know why I feel this way."

Because she kept having those she loved ripped away from her. Natsu wished he could make it so she never lost anyone again but he knew he couldn't stop the passage of time. Lucy needed to heal her wounds and she needed to come to terms with her situation. She could not have everything. She needed to accept her sacrifice.

"Come under the covers?" Lucy asked.

Natsu stood and took off his tattered clothing. Everything was ruined. In the morning when Lucy was stronger, he'd encourage her to summon Virgo and he'd beg some clothing from her. Then they'd travel back to Magnolia and Natsu would grit his teeth through long-winded explanations and tears he didn't feel very patient toward. But for now, he'd enjoy the feeling of his skin against Lucy's.

She moved closer, putting her back to his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. Lucy sighed. He felt her gratification move through him and liked that he'd pleased her. He couldn't tell if it was the magic binding them together now or if he actually felt that way, though. He also wasn't really sure if it mattered.

He kissed her neck and her shoulder and her lips when she leaned back into him, and then the rest of her body because he'd almost forgotten how good it was to have her like this. Between her thighs and between her breasts and back to her lips again.

Lucy trapped his face between her palms before he could pull away from her. "I love you."

The Queen of Bone's handmaidens had said those words to him a hundred times wearing Lucy's face, but their words lacked the ability to wriggle deep inside him and gain purchase, to fortify him, like the roots of a tree. They lacked the ability to make him feel human.

"I love you, too."

He had her on her side and pressed his hand to the base of her throat to feel her sighs, and when he finished, he closed his eyes. For the first time in months, he rested, and he didn't dream.

* * *

Loke dipped the tips of his fingers in the River of Forgetting, trying to tempt the Gleaner into tormenting him with the tragedies of his old life. There was a lot of nothing in Hell, a lot of time to think and grieve. A lot of empty spaces and empty promises by a handmaiden he _thought_ could be like the girl he abandoned. He wanted desperately to compare her memory to what he had now.

"She won't show you," came a familiar rasp. Loke looked up from the River of Forgetting. Zeref stood on the opposite shore, hands loose at his side, thick with blood from fingertip to elbow. Loke felt relief swell up inside him. Zeref hadn't abandoned him completely. The feeling was tempered, though.

"It's her job to torment souls with her memories."

"It's her job to _torment._ Are you not tormented?"

He was.

"She will not show you," Zeref said again.

Loke sighed and sat back on his bottom, gazing in the River of Forgetting, hoping Zeref was wrong but knowing he spoke the truth.

"I can't give you Lucy," Zeref said after a time. "I can give you distraction, though."

Loke looked up through his messy sheaf of hair. "How?"

"War."

_War._ Even though Zeref wore a crown of bone, there were still factions of Hell that would not bow to him. Loke had heard the whispers. And Zeref would tear Hell apart under the guise of quashing them because even in death, he couldn't stop killing. Like Loke, he was built for battle.

His handmaiden moved behind an outcropping of brimstone, waiting for him, always. When she stepped into the light Loke carried with him, she was flesh and golden locks, sweet smelling, with a kind smile and a soft disposition. In the shadows, she was bone and horror. He found himself closing his eyes when the light went out and didn't want to.

He would take Zeref's offer of distraction, then. "Where do we begin?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end.
> 
> Almost a year and a half project, come to a close. Thanks for reading. Hopefully you liked it, even just a little bit. I'm on Patreon if you want more stories. You can even request your own, that's fun, isn't it? Can't really do ff, though, for legal reasons. If you're interested, it's Kaitlin Corvus. On Twitter, too.
> 
> I'll miss you all like a torn out front tooth.
> 
> It's been a slice. Au revoir.


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